


The Necromancer's tale

by redshadowalchemist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Dark Harry Potter, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Horcruxes, James' parents are Charlus and Dorea, M/M, Necromancer Harry Potter, Necromancy, Ravenclaw Harry Potter, Reincarnation, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Secret Identity, Slytherin Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27200830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redshadowalchemist/pseuds/redshadowalchemist
Summary: Ophiuchus Black, member of the most noble and ancient house of Black, infamous necromancer and lover of the dark lord Voldemort didn't fear death. He always knew he would return.Except he expected to be reborn immediately, or at worst 9 months after his death, he didn't expect was that it would take 11 years for him to be finally reborn.Reborn as the wizarding world's so called saviour. The most infamous necromancer in recent memory must contend with the light's expectations while trying to reuinite with the sorry remains of his family. He also has to find out what went so wrong that his former lover seems to have gone completely insane.Young Harry works from behind the scenes to restore his lover, and his family to their former glory.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Orion Black/Walburga Black, Pandora Lovegood/Xenophilius Lovegood, Pandora Lovegood/original male character, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Tom Riddle/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 55
Kudos: 850
Collections: Dark Liege Potter, Potter and Riddle, The Harry Potters





	1. Ophiuchus Black

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the first "Harry Potter was Voldemort's lover reincarnated" fic ever written. I hope my take is original enough. 
> 
> This is a dark Harry!, Dumbledore is manipulative, the dark side are the good guys (sort of), guilty pleasure fic. 
> 
> A note on official birthdates. I am ignoring them. For a start Rowling has said herself she is rubbish at maths and the official dates have discrepancies for example Cygnus Black III was born in 1938, but Bellatrix was born in 1951. If these dates are correct Bellatrix was born when her father was 13. Similarly Pollux (father of Cygnus) was born 1912 but his eldest child Walburga was born 1925, again making him 13. 
> 
> So I am using this https://i.redd.it/iw7llhax7zu11.png family tree but ignoring the dates. 
> 
> Tom Riddle was born 1926 and he was a contemporary of Ophiuchus Black (who I made up for this fic) so I have added 10 years to Cygnus and for my purposes he was born 1928. Alphards birth date is unclear so I am giving him 1930 as a birth date. Similarly Pollux's birth date is moved to 1902 and his father Cygnus' Black II's birthdate is now 1879. I think that fixes the age discrepancies. I considered also extending the lives of many characters, it seems bizarre to me that in a world where wizards can outlive muggles by decades that everyone dies in their fifities or early sixties. However, I can't be bothered to make up personalities for that many characters we only know by name so I am leaving that alone. They all died of convenient-to-the-plot-itis. 
> 
> I am also ignoring fantastic beasts canon and making up the Lestrange family from this time period. I'm keeping the name Corvus though because I like it. Corvus Lestrange in this fic has no resemblence to any Corvus Lestrange's in fantastic beasts though, he's an oc with the name because I like the name.

Ophiuchus Black was born 31 October 1926, on Samhain night at Yew manor, seat of the branch of the Black family descended from Cygnus II, the second son of famous Phineas Nigellus Black who had been headmaster of Hogwarts (in truth Cygnus II was the third son of the late headmaster but his real second son, also called Phineas was never spoken of, after he had the temerity to stand up for the rights of muggles and mudbloods). He was the grandson of said Cygnus II and his wife Violletta Bulstrode via their only son Pollux Black and his wife Irma Crabbe (at least it was claimed Pollux was his only son, Pollux's squib brother Marius had dissapeared from the family home at the age of 11 never to be seen again. 

The famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) noble and most ancient house of Black, was a member of the sacred 28, pure blooded, wealthy and dark. 

All of this guaranteed the new baby Ophiuchus a position of wealth and privelage in the wizarding world, but also one of suspicion from the more liberal members of the wizarding world. 

The birth of a new member of the Black family, especially an eldest son of an eldest son, and future heir to Yew manor would have been noted under any circumstances but the birth of this child in particular was noted simply because the child was born with eyes of killing curse green.

Everyone who even partially kept to the old ways knew what it meant when a witch or wizard was born with eyes like that. Green eyes were always associated with magic in the minds of muggles, but it was not green eyes that were the problem. A witch or wizard could have eyes of willow green, or emerald orbs or olive coloured eyes and that would not be remarked upon. It was only eyes the colour of the killing curse, the dark vibrant green which marked young Ophiuchus Black from birth, that declared for the whole world to see that the boy would grow up to be a necromancer.

To be born marked as he was into a light family would have been disaster, and brought shame upon his family, in another life in the future, Ophiuchus would wonder if it was this shunning that led to so many of his compatriots actually channeling their powers. After all, if you are shunned for being powerful you may as well use that power and at least get something out of the rejection, you may even be driven to use it for revenge. Unconditional love for such children may have stopped a lot of tradgedies, nearly all necromancers died by their own hand, usually bringing others down with them as they sunk into madness. 

But they didn't need to use all their power just because they could. There are many wizards powerful enough to cast the killing curse, not everyone is capable but an estimated 20 per cent of the adult wizarding population has the power to case the killing curse if they wish, if they all chose to do so, Azkaban could not hold all the prisoners. Why should it be different for necromancy? But these would be thoughts for later, another life with different experiences.

In this life he was born into the perfect family for a necromancer to be born into, a very rich, very dark inclined family and that made things less dangerous for the child, but still complex.

In such families it used to be an honour for a child to be born with some special gift, but nowadays given the encroaching of the light into even their private practices, it could be hard to function in society if you were a child with such green eyes or the parent of one. Torn between delight and terror Cygnus II, Pollux and Irma began to silently assemble a collection of necromantic books for when their second child was old enough, they did this discretely through Borgin and Burkes. Cygnus' sister Belvina was married to Hurbert Burke which made this easier.

Despite being inwardly pleased they were also afraid, while they were silently amassing things to help their child they also kept him hidden, Ophiuchus grew up isolated, his family afraid of drawing attention to those eyes. The adults saw a child who innocent now would grow to have great power and they coddled him. It didn't help here that he was born physically weak, often kept indoors, his only companions aside from books, were his close family, mostly his younger brothers, Cygnus and Alphard, who were two and four years younger than his respectively and occassionally his cousin Orion who was three years younger than Ophiuchus. His sister Walburga and cousin Lucretia were both a year older than him. He was closer to Lucretia than Walburga though, as Walburga out of the jealousy she felt as Ophiuchus gifts and fragile health took all the attention away from her. This would improve as they got older and Walburga realized how powerful her brother truly was.

Outside the family his friends were limited to acceptable children of his parent's pure blood friends, siblings of his brother's friends, pureblooded children of appropriate background. He had met them rarely given his ill health and his eyes but Ophiuchus knew who he should be befreidning, Abraxas Malfoy, heir to the Malfoy family and Corvus Lestrange heir to the Lestrange fortune were both born close enough to him that they would be in the same year at Hogwarts. Ophiuchus came from a secondary branch of the Black family, Yew manor not Grimmauld place but they were such a large and wealthy family it didn't matter.

His other companion, a girl seven years younger than him who his parents made a point of introducing, Pandora Malfoy, Abraxas' younger sister. Children from "good" families had it drilled into them that their friends today would become their political allies tomorrow and one of them would be their spouse. Pollux Black was politicially influential, and he and Amadeus Malfoy had an agreement, Ophiuchus was to marry Pandora.

By the time he entered Hogwarts, the first time he had really be socialized Ophiuchus had only met Pandora a few times, she was four years old now and he had known since she was a baby that she would one day be his wife. Like most eleven year old boys he wasn't that interested in a four year old girl but he recognized she was considered pretty and she was sweet. He was getting a far better deal than his second cousin Orion who was set to wed his sister Walburga Ophiuchus wasn't sure how that would go. Orion was in temprement very like his future son Sirius, an easy going young man with a questionable sense of humor. Walburga was Ophiuchus' sister and he would never voice it aloud but she wasn't a very nice person.

He was wrong in his assumptions though, Orion and Walburga would find some peace, and though their marriage would not be one of great love they would grow fond of each other, there would be respect and affection if not romantic attatchment. His own marriage would be colder. If anyone had asked him at this point in time, he would have told them he was happy with his match, why would he not be? Pandora Malfoy was pretty and may turn out to be beautiful, all Malfoy women were beautiful, and she was sweet. Raised as he had been in a dark pureblooded aristocratic family, the concept of marrying for love had never occured to him. And if he was to be stuck with his parent's choice at least he would probably end up with a beautiful wife, when Pandora had time to grow. Ophiuchus didn't know it at the time he would break that sweet (if a bit dreamy) girl's heart. 

The simple reason was that on his first journey on the Hogwarts express he would meet the love of his life (or should that be lives?) 

World's can turn on such chance events, on random meetings. In another life, the heir to the Blacks of Yew Manor would have not looked at the cold boy who seemed to be a mudblood twice.

You cannot isolate a child for much of their life and expect them to suddenly become gregarious and friendly and Ophiuchus wished only for quiet. Being about as considerate as the average 11 year old children neither Abraxas nor Corvus had noted their friend's discomfort too busy holding court amount the new first years they considered "worthy".

So when Ophiuchus Black opened the door or a seemingly empty compartment, he found it was not empty, a quite boy in muggle clothes sat there reading a thick book aimed at third year students, despite looking about Ophiuchus' age. It would have been expected a Black would either leave or try to kick out the mudblood. But Ophiuchus figures a mudblood wouldn't know what his eyes meant so he wouldn't have to explain himself while avoiding the more rambunctious boys he should have been associating with. He sat down.

Two people who in another life may have passed each other without a second thought, two boys who both had the potential to be great and terrible alone, but whose early meeting would change the course of history.

"Hello, I'm Tom" the boy said speaking first as if he considered Ophiuchus' sitting down without so much as a "hello" rude. Which it was really.  
"I'm Ophiuchus Black. What's your last name?"  
"Riddle" the boy clearly thought it a stupid name it wasn't a wizard name, Ophiuchus knew his family would not be keen on his making "mudblood" friends but something about the boy drew him in. He recognized dark power when he saw it.  
"Are you a mud..muggleborn?" he asked.  
"I don't know. One of my parents may have been magical I think. I never knew my parents. I'm going to do some research."  
"I'm a pureblood. So I may be able to help you."  
"Pureblood?"  
"You'll soon learn some wizarding families are better than others. I can help you" and he held out his hand, he wasn't sure why he offered to help this mudblood (half blood? Someone with such a strong aura couldn't possibly be a mudblood in Ophiuchus' narrow world view).

In another world, around sixty years in the future, Ophiuchus' great nephew Draco Malfoy would speak similar words to Harry Potter and be rebuffed, but Tom Riddle was not Harry Potter and he shook Ophiuchus Black's hand.

Just like that the world changed.

Two lonely boys, from very different ends of the social spectrum, but by the end of their first ride on the Hogwarts express they would have both become life long friends.

Tom's first year at Hogwarts would not have been pleasant if his friendship with Ophiuchus had not saved him from the worst of the bullying, he was after all a "mudblood" in Slytherin. His friendship with Ophiuchus saved him the worst of it especially when Ophiuchus discovered his friend was a parselmouth and recommended a demonstration in the common room. Tom was largely left alone after that.

Of the pair Tom was the more engaging, the more charismatic and charming. He was also more academically intelligent and magically powerful, Ophiuchus was very gifted and any other year would have been the stand out student. It may have been thought a pure blood aristocrat of such talent would resent being second to a "mudblood" but Ophiuchus never felt that way. He could sense Tom's raw power and while he himself was a formidable power his skills were channeled into certain areas, namely necromancy and dark arts, but Ophiuchus was the first to see the potential in Tom, and his knowledge and connections helped Tom Riddle break into the world he wanted to be a part of far sooner than he would have otherwise. On his own he would have eventually achieved this through sheer hard work and force of personality but his closeness to a Black made it so much easier. Lord Voldemort never ceased to be grateful for this and in turn, Ophiuchus Black was the only person who could ever get away with talking back to the dark Lord Voldemort, his second in command, most trusted lieutenant, his equal almost for Ophiuchus Black was not only the only person Lord Voldemort ever trusted he was also the only person Tom Riddle ever loved.

When Tom killed his uncle, Ophiuchus was there, when Tom opened the chamber of secrets Ophiuchus became the first person who was not a descendant of Slytherin to see the basilisk. They had sex that night, the first time for both of them.

Together they delved deep into the dark arts. They did have disagreements, Ophiuchus worried about the horcruxes, he wasn't put off by the dark magic but he did worry splitting the soul would have unforseen consequences, despite this he was there when Tom performed each ritual, preferring to be present to help if something went wrong. Tom in turn wanted his friend and lover with him for eternity and he feared being left alone. He had been alone his whole life, until he met Ophiuchus. The necromancer found his own way, and instead performed a ritual which would allow him to be reborn. Tom still fussed, even if it worked, which they wouldn't know until Ophiuchus died, Tom would have to wait nine months at least for the necromancer to be reborn, and then his lover would be an infant (though Ophiuchus kept pointing out ageing potions were a thing). Their differing belief in different methods of immortality were the only thing the pair ever disagreed on in any significant way.

Ophiuchus still married Pandora Malfoy they had put the marriage off until Pandora was 21, 21 was considered an appropriate age for marriage though the Malfoys and Blacks had been assuming Pandora would marry Ophiuchus straight out of Hogwarts, she was seven years his junior and he would be 25 when she graduated, which was getting into confirmed bachelor territory in the minds of the Blacks and Malfoys, both were families in which marrying young was expected. Ophiuchus put it off a few years but could not push it back further without implying he didn't want her. He didn't want her but after a long discussion with Tom who was initially incandescant with jealousy the pair decided rejecting her completely would cause too much chaos. And while he had no desire for Pandora, Ophiuchus wasn't gay, not really, he wasn't attracted to men, he was just attracted to Tom. He could appreciate Pandora's beauty, she had grown to be as beautiful as expected...but she just wasn't Tom. 

He wasn't a cruel husband, not in any traditional sense he neither beat nor raped his wife, he was generous with her allowance and when they were in the same room (rarely, he slept at the Riddle House Tom used as a base more than his own home) he was polite and gentle to her. But he couldn't love her. He never slept with her, depsite knowing she desired children, sweet beautiful Pandora became very isolated. She tried to get him interested, though she had no love for him either, and would have settled for one night to concieve a child and nothing more, but it didn't work. Life was tedious for Pandora, she was an engaging woman, she grew to be a remarkable beauty and while her status meant she could not lower herself to something as lowly as a "job". She would have been a brilliant spell creator she loved to experiment with both potions and charms. 

The Black and Malfoy families considered the fact that Ophiuchus made no complaint when his wife started fires or blew up rooms of the cottage they had been given by his father Pollux to start their married life, made him an indulgent husband. They didn't know the truth though. Pandora dared not complain not when Ophiuchus was the pride of the Black's a full fledged necromancer and confidante of the dark lord. The lack of children was also therefore unfairly blamed on Pandora. Who was already considered a bit of a failure, since she had been sorted into Ravenclaw, not Slytherin. A Ravenclaw sorting was not enough for the Malfoy's to disown her or the Black's to reject her but it was a point against her.

While he neglected his wife, Ophiuchus' skills surpassed many necromancers of the past, including some actual dark lords. In fact, had he not been so loyal to Voldemort he may have become a dark lord himself. He always disputed this to, pointing out on multiple occassions to Tom that to be a dark lord you had to deal with people, and he didn't like people. Living people anyway. He loved Tom and had affection for his brothers Alphard and Cygnus and his cousins Orion and Lucretia, he even warmed up to his sister Walburga once she stopped being such a bitch to him. But he was never a sociable person. 

He conjured inferi in their thousands to guard his lover's horcrux. He developed dark curses to use on his enemies, avada kedavra wasn't very imaginative and he only used it when in a tight spot as it was quicker.

Unfortunately Ophiuchus wasn't always as quick as he liked. When he died, he died bloody, like always knew he would. 

The dark lord found his body, and he waited, Ophiuchus had promised him he would come back so he waited. For years and there was no sign, Voldemort was never the same after he died.

Without the necromancer to calm him down, without his lover, the last thread of the dark lord's sanity which given how mutilated his soul was was already extremembly tenous was pulled taught, and when he finally gave up hope of ever seeing the necromancer again, it snapped completely.

Wizarding Britian descended into chaos. 

Under the new dark regime Ophiuchus' friends and family would suffer, the autoritarian dark lord would turn in a lunatic who would crucio his loyal followers for the slightest percieved slight.

The inferi he conjured to protect his lord would drag his own nephew to a horrific death.

Ophiuchus Black would come face to face with the love of his life on 31 October 1981, on what would have been his 55th birthday and to his horror he did not intially recognize what his lover had become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Pandora Malfoy is Luna's mother. I'll elaborate on that later probably chapter 3 or 4. I've read several other fics that have Luna being related to the Malfoy's and it amuses me to think of the Lovegoods as slightly embarrassing and snubbed but not completely cut off cousins (mostly I like the idea of Lucius trying to have a polite conversation with Xenophilius) and little Draco trying his "look at all my toys I'm so rich" routine to Luna who just doesn't care. The time line I have in my notes indicates this just works if Pandora had Luna in her forties (but if JK Rowling can be lax on dates I think I can too).


	2. Harry Potter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first year and a half of Ophiuchus Black's second life as Harry Potter.

The first awareness Ophiuchus Black had after his bloody death (the details of which he wasn't as certain as he would have liked to be). Was of a red headed woman looking up at him. She has green eyes, but normal green eyes, not necromancer's eyes.

The red headed woman must be his mother, she doesn't panic when he opens his eyes, so either he doesn't have the necromancer's eyes in this life, which is highly unlikely, he is delighted he can sense his magical core remained in tact along with his memories. If he magical core is in tact so is his necromancy. Which means his mother doesn't know what his eyes mean so she is either a muggle or mudblood. This...might actually be advantageous in a strange way. Ophiuchus Black always believed in blood purity but he was also more than that, a pragmatic man. He had spent most of his previous life sleeping with a half blood after all. He may have been disowned for that had his family found out, though the fact said half blood was a dark lord might have saved him out of pure lust for power and connections. Then again his first cousin once removed Cedrella had been disowned for marrying Septimus Weasley and he was a pureblood, albeit a blood traitor with no money. But if anyone can make being a mudblood or half blood work it is Ophiuchus Black, he spent his first life watching Tom make it work after all.

"Hello Harry" his mother says "welcome to the world".

Harry, such a common name, he had always told Tom his name didn't matter but when he said that he had had a proper aristocratic pureblood name. He now desires Tom's desire to change it.

Next a man is leaning over him, he has dark hair that looks like it could do with a comb being run through it, glasses and looks vaguely like his uncle by marriage Charlus Potter.

He does notice the necromancer's eyes because the wide smile slips from his face, Harry wonders if this is his father.  
"Lily, his eyes." His father isn't a muggle or a mudblood then.  
"What's wrong?"  
"It's OK" the man said suddenly changing his attitude very quickly, as he steels himself "we'll still love him. Of course we will, he's ours and he's a baby he's innocent."  
"James, what's wrong?"  
"Those eyes, their necromancer's eyes. The last necromancer, Ophiuchus Black, he'd have died before you came into the wizarding world. Ophiuchus Black was a first cousin of mine, I never met him. My mother was never disowned for marrying my father but she was certainly snubbed...not that she cared. Sirius knew him though. Ophiuchus Black was brother of his mother Walburga, and Ophiuchus Black was you-know-who's right hand man. To have the same eyes...Harry, he's just a baby and just because he'll be able to do necromancy doesn't mean he will... not if we teach him right. But I'm worried about how he'll be treated given the last necromancer in living memory. He only died 11 years ago, people remember him. If we don't protect him he's going to be shunned by the light and hunted by the dark...they've been weaked since they lost Ophiuchus Black."

11 years. He has been gone for 11 years. And who is his father? He must have a Black mother, a cousin of his. His father (the original one) had two siblings (since no one mentions the squib Marius), Cassiopea and Dorea. Cassiopea never married but Dorea...married Charlus Potter. They had one son, who Ophiuchus had indeed never met but Harry's father was young, 20ish. Dorea Black's son would have been about the right age when Ophiuchus died that he could now be around 20. Marrying a Potter was not worth being disowned but since Henry Potter, Charlus' father had been deliberately excluded from Cantankerous Nott's sacred 28 due to his advocating muggle rights it was not considered a good match. Aunt Dorea had only been 6 years older than Ophiuchus and she had had her son later in life. That time line worked out.

He hears what sounds like a door open, and it is very annoying he can't turn his head properly, he can already tell being a newborn will be immensely frustrating.

"Prongs" a booming voice said, was that Orion? It sounded like cousin Orion.

"Hello Padfoot" Harry's father smiles.

"So am I a godfather or a godmother?" he said lightly.

"It doesn't work like that" his mother said but she was smiling, "his name is Harry."

"Aw hello Harry" not Orion then, Sirius or Regalus maybe? One of Orion's sons.

Sirius notices the eyes first. "James" he said in a choked fearful voice, Harry's father is called James then.

"I know Sirius, but he's innocent just a baby."

"Of course he is. We have to be better, you can bet Uncle Pollux and Aunt Irma were acquiring books for my uncle Ophiuchus from the beginning, encouraging him to use he talents. It must be yet another recessive trait in the blood of the Blacks. Like Andy's daughter, she's a metamorphagus."

It's kind of sweet in a way, the Potters were a lot lighter than the Black's, despite Dorea. They wouldn't have liked having a child with such eyes but they still seemed determined to love him. Ophiuchus only had to remember his squib uncle (who may or may not have been murdered by his grandparents, supposedly they had stopped murdering squibs by the turn of the 20th century instead sending them out into the muggle world, but with a family like the Blacks it was impossible to tell)to know that his previous family would not be so accepting of traits they disliked.

Lily it turns out, is a mudblood but Lily and James are great parents. Their close friends Sirius, Remus (a werewolf but not one of Greyback's unfortunately Harry could have worked with that. He always got on well with Greyback), are Harry's godfathers, they have another friend too Peter. Harry wasn't as keen on Peter who just seemed weak and pathetic.

They call each other silly nicknames, James is "Prongs", Sirius is "Padfoot", Remus is "Moony" and Peter is "Wormtail". They call themselves the Marauders collectively, though Harry isn't sure why it soon becomes clear what the nicknames mean, each man, aside from Remus whose nickname relating to the moon is obviously due to his being a werewolf, is an animagus.

It turns out his initial impressions were correct. Being a baby is immensely frustrating, he can't do anything for himself, the knowledge from his previous life is all still there but none of the muscle memory. It is far quicker for him to learn to walk, or be potty trained than a normal child due to this knowledge but it still takes time for him to train the muscles. When he sees Tom again he will not be telling his lover about this, he can just imagine the smug look on the dark lord's face.

It takes just a few weeks of Harry's new life for whispers to start. For Lily or James to take him out of the room while the other shares hushed whispers with someone else. Some of the people they are talking to he recognizes as part of Dumbledore's fan club, others he doesn't recognize.

If he had the choice he'd have been reborn a Black, or if not a Black than a Malfoy, or Lestrange, or another old pureblood family but since he is stuck in a family of Dumbledore sympathisers he is going to milk this for all the information he can.

This would betray his new parents who he does have fondness for unexpectedly but he would always have killed his entire family for Tom's sake if need be. If Tom had requested it he would have slaughtered his brothers, his cousins, his sister, his nieces and nephews even his parents. He loved them, but would still have killed them for Tom.

One day another child is brought in, he is the same age as Harry but a proper baby without the advanced motorskills of the reincarnated necromancer. He is a Longbottom, which isn't so bad his first cousin once removed Callidora (sister of the Cedrella who ran off with Septimus Weasley) had married Harfang Longbottom. He thought the child in front of him might be a great grandson of Callidora and Harfang.

Neville, is a boring child, but Ophiuchus has never been great with children, his only real experience his younger brothers when he was an actual child and later on his nieces and nephews.

Bellatrix, Cygnus' eldest daughter had been his favourite but he'd only been interested in her when she turned six or seven and could hold a proper conversation. She'd even lived with him temporarily during a few summer holidays in her later Hogwarts years as he tutored her in the dark arts for which she had great aptitude. She'd idolized him and she (and her betrothed Rudolphus Lestrange) both wished to join the death eaters as soon as they came of age. They would need to reach a certain competency to advance. Ophiuchus wanted the ranks of the inner circle full of his family though, he'd even allowed Rabastan, Rudolphus' brother in on his class. Lucius Malfoy had asked too but the boy was three years younger than Bella and Rudolphus and two years younger than Rabastan. He'd told him to come back later. Since his disasterous marriage he needed to find another way to keep the alliance with the Malfoy's. Abraxas understood and he hadn't been too fond of Pandora anyway but he wanted a more binding alliance so he had promised Lucius he could ask again in two years time. He'd died before then though. He always liked teaching, he and Tom had that in common. That if they hadn't been dark wizards they would have been great teachers. But he had been teaching teenagers, near adults, and those teenagers would have known who he was and how powerful he was, he had never had to deal with the children sleeping while he was talking or misbehaving in class.

None of that helped with an infant when he too was supposed to be behaving like an infant. Harry didn't play much and that concerned Lily and James, (though he had quite liked the toy broom Sirius had given him, he had always enjoyed flying he'd been Slytherin seeker since his second year). He also tolerated Sirius turning into a dog and giving him a ride. He liked Remus more though, his nephew was misguided, though he thought not unsalveagable, even with the Black habit of pruning undesireable branches he was surprised Orion and Walburga cast him aside so easy. He would definitely have had words with his sister...if he hadn't been dead that was.

The same day Remus was watching them while Harry's parents and the Longbottoms were in the kitchen speaking in hushed voices as if they feared the children would hear. Dumbledore himself was in there.

Harry doesn't hear what Dumbledore has to say to his parents as Remus is bouncing him on his knee but after Dumbledore's little chat Lily scoops him up in her arms and holds him tight, she is crying.

Alice, he thinks Neville's mother is called does the same with her son. Dumbledore looks at him "Hello little one" he says to Harry not commenting on the eyes, though a subtle twitch of his face indicates he has noticed and noted the eyes though.

For a moment Harry is worried Dumbledore has somehow recognized him. But James and Sirius are running around in the background hurridly panicking.

Whatever is going on, Sirius, Remus and Peter are no longer around anymore. It is just Harry and his parents moving from place to place. He wishes Lily and James were slightly less conscientious parents, they are trying to protect him but just frustrating him. He wants to scream at them to tell him what is going on.

They have been in the cottage "Godric's Hollow" it is called, at least Harry thinks so, for a few weeks before Harry thinks this might be their new permanent home.

It is Halloween, what would have been his 55th birthday if he hadn't died. He was in a melancholy mood today. His mother was concerned he had not yet started to speak when he seemed to advanced in other areas, but the truth was simply he feared giving himself away if he started to speak. He would have to start soon though, the occasional "mama" or "dada" to avoid them becoming suspicious. He found it irritating. He was growing rather fond of Lily and James in a way, which he hadn't expected at first but he did not enjoy being stuck as a child.

As she put him to bed Lily continued to chat. Then they head the gate creak open and Harry heard his father shout.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off –’ " next Harry heard a high cold laugh and saw a flash of green light through the banisters, a colour he was intimately familiar with. He knew James Potter was dead.

His mother must have known it too because she let out a horrific scream. She must have truly loved him. Harry felt moderate sadness, James had been good to him. But there was a more pressing concern, creaking stairs, they were trapped and whoever had killed James Potter was coming now. Lily didn't have her wand and Harry didn't have one being an infant. If his lord had followed the plan he knew exactly where Ophiuchus Black's wand was, and given his core was the same he should be able to use it still, but that was no use to him now. He now knew his ritual to be reborn had worked but since it had taken 11 years rather than happening immediately as he had expected he didn't really want to die. Lily slammed the door shut and began to move furniture trying to barricade herself in with a chair, and boxes hastily piled against it. Then she lifted Harry in her arms, they were trapped and her makeshift barricade would not stop an even halfway competent wizard, she must have known this deep down he could feel her shaking.

The assailant easily forced the door open, causing the boxes to scatter everywhere as the chair crashed down. Lily dropped Harry back into the cot and threw her arms wide, which wouldn't help. Not if the assailant would stoop to child murder. Even Ophiuchus Black had never killed a child.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" she cried out, so the assailant had come for him? But why?

"Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside, now …" he knew that voice. Tom. Yes move you idiot. Harry thought uncharitably. He was fond of Lily and James but that was nothing, nothing at all compared to his love for Tom.

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead –"

"This is my last warning –"

"Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy … Not Harry! Not Harry! Please – I’ll do anything –"

"Stand aside – stand aside, girl –" why was he telling her to stand aside, he had already killed James why was he showing mercy to a mudblood over the pureblooded son of a Black?

However, Tom's patience seemed to have run out, the green light flashed around the room and she dropped to the floor. So young barely 21 years old. Such a waste.

Harry stood clutching the bars of his cot and looking up into Tom's face.

Then Tom...what had happened to his face? He was so white, his nose gone...Harry had been prepared for white hair, or no hair. He had been prepared for Tom to have aged, to have gained weight. All the typical signs of ageing but not this...what had he done to himself?

Harry tried to speak, then cursed, his lack of interest in communicating with his new (now late) parents had meant he hadn't excercised his vocal chords the same way he had quickly mastered standing and toilet training.

Come on Tom, he thoght desperately, you know me, I know you do. I don't know what happened to you but we can fix this. You and me, its always been you and me. I left you for eleven years and I'm sorry but please Tom we can fix this.

This wasn't Tom though, this was Voldemort and he pointed the wand very carefully at Harry's face  
"Avada Kedavra!"

The next think Harry knew was blinding pain and he did cry out. He fell back into the cot. When Harry finally came around, his head felt like it was going to split open.

Why wasn't he dead? Where was Tom?

Tom's black robes were in a corner, but empty. Lily Potter's body was on the floor. There was a man holding her in his arms and sobbing, a man Harry did not recognize. He began to scream like a child, the only recourse still open to him the man looked at him, but it was a look of hatred then he was gone.

Harry waits longer, it could be minutes it could be hours, there is no clock in the room and it is getting cold, it was late October, though it might now be November it was probably past midnight, and whatever had happened to Tom. Was he dead? Please don't let him be dead Harry prayed though he wasn't sure who to. He was already planning doing a mental tally of the Horcruxes, and every ritual he knew with which to bring Tom back.

Then he sees it, Tom's wand on the floor. Yew with phoenix feather, Ophiuchus Black's wand had also been Yew, Yew with thestral hair. Would Tom's wand work for him, albeit temporarily. It wouldn't be as good as his own wand of course but it might do as an alternative to nothing.

He focused all his wandless ability, Ophiuchus Black had been good at wandless magic but that was in a body highly trained dark wizard, not the chubby body of an infant. He barely manages to move it a few inches.

It takes what seems like hours of work, the wand rolls near the cot. Just a little further-

Then there is another huge crash, what now? A figure runs up the stairs, he is huge. Rubeus Hagrid. Harry recognizes him, the half giant with a penchant for acromantula who had been such a convenient patsy for the death of that whining mudblood Myrtle Warren.

"Oh Harry" he says warmly and he picks him up in his arms "come on let's get you somewhere safe now."

Then someone else barges in, Merlin its like Picadilly circus in here, its Sirius.

"Hagrid" he sounds hoarse and broken "Lily and James... give Harry to me I'm his godfather I'll take him."

"I can't do that Sirius, Dumbledore's orders."

"Dumbledore? But I'm his godfather."

"Professor Dumbledore says he's arranged for Harry to go somewhere safe, Lily's sister... out of the wizarding world where none of you know who's supporters can find him."

Harry knows nothing about the muggle world, this is one thing he cannot draw on experience from his previous life over.

He begins to cry in attempt to disrupt the argument and persuade Sirius to take him but of course neither Hagrid or Sirius understand him.

"I'm going after the rat then" Sirius said "you can take my bike it will be quicker" and he ran off. The rat, Wormtail perhaps? What had wormtail done?

At least he gets a ride on the bike out of this despite a general distaste for anything muggle he had always fancied a ride on Sirius' motorbike.

But he's physically and mentally exhausted and the body doesn't have the resilience and adult would. He's out like a light as they fly over Bristol.

He will awaken in the morning to the screams of Petunia Dursley as she opens to door to collect the milk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Lily and James are gone :(. It was heartbreaking to write Lily's death scene but we all knew it was coming. I didn't want to write too much about Lily and James because it would be too sad to kill them (also I'm not great at characterizing them).
> 
> I think they'd love their son though even if he was born with a feature they didn't like such as necromancy. So it hasn't been made too much of a big deal about here outside the initial shock.
> 
> I am also aware canonically Charlus and Dorea were not James' parents that was Euphemia and Fleamont, however I wanted Harry to still have a blood link to the Blacks and so many fanfics still use Charlus and Dorea (who were assumed to be James' parents until JK introduced Fleamont and Euphemia) I figure its fine. Plus its my story and I can do what I want. If I want to turn Draco into a purple triceretops I will do because its my story.
> 
> Next time Harry has to deal with the Dursleys and begins to fill in the gaps regarding what happened in the 11 years since Ophiuchus Black died. But he still has one overwhelmingly desperate question. Where's Tom?


	3. Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's life with the Dursleys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not as proud of this chapter as the others I find the Dursleys quite hard to write. This is my longest chapter so far but its mostly bridging between Lily and James' death and the action starting.

Living with the Dursleys confirmed every negative prejudice Ophiuchus Black had ever had about muggles.

Yes, by most standard Ophiuchus Black had been a close minded blood purist but his only experiences with muggles had been second hand, via what Tom had told him of the orphanage, he'd even been once to meet Tom so he could come home with them, his parents hadn't been thrilled about their son's new best friend at first but by the time they were third years, especially with Ophiuchus accidentally on purpose letting it slip Tom was a parselmouth they had decided of course he had to be a lost descendant of Salazar Slytherin and that made him an acceptable friend for their eldest son. But Ophiuchus' one foray into the muggle world had not created a favourable impression, the woman in charge had been a deeply unpleasant and bitter muggle who Ophiuchus' mother probably imperio'd as a shortcut because she couldn't be bothered to lie to the matron about who they were or why they were taking Tom with them.

Wool's Orphanage and now the Dursleys. With such examples is it any wonder he couldn't stand muggles? Bascially all the predjudice he had absorbed from his family was being confirmed in his eyes.

The Dursleys were the worst sort of muggle imagineable, the emodiment of every negative stereotype purebloods had about then, so obsessed with seeming like normal upstanding citizens who despised anything they considered abnormal, it was clear that included Harry as well. Combined with the fact neither Lily's sister Petunia and her husband Vernon were particularly bright.

The Dursleys clearly resented him, but whatever was in the letter that had been hidden in his basket had cowed them enough to take him. Harry was going to be leaving as soon as he was able. A bit more height, a bit more physical strength and stamina and he would be out of here.

He began meditating in the cupboard as had been his habit, he knew how to put up occlumency shields, and how to organize his memories in the most effective way to protect himself but his shields were weaker than they should be in this new body and since he could do little while he was so weak and small he was going to do what little he could to strengthen himself.

This is what he was doing the day he found what the scar Tom had left on him truly meant. The first time he saw the scar it was in passing in the mirror in the hall as Petunia carried him past one of the rare times she deigned to touch him. It was odd as the killing curse should leave no mark, but then again there was no way a killing curse shouldn't kill either. Something odd had definitely happened.

It was 11pm and quite outside, he knew this because tempus was one of the first charms he had tried to cast wandlessly so he would know when the Dursley's would be asleep upstairs so it was safe to leave the cupboard and steal food, when he felt it.

A buzzing in the back of his mind, connected to the scar. It took some deep concentration and unravelling many instinctive layers of occlumency before he realized what it was. A horcrux, Tom's horcrux. It was just a tiny sliver of Tom's soul, not as strong as the other horcruxs he had held, not like the diary, or the ring.

He was intimately familiar with Horcruxes, as Ophiuchus Black had worn the Gaunt family ring for years. Tom had initially planned to bury it in the Gaunt Shack but that was before he understood what he really had. The ressurrection stone, one of the hallows, he hadn't known what it was so he hadn't tried to use it. He'd handed it off to Ophiuchus to hold while he casted some charms and in the necromancer's hands it had reacted automatically.

Tom had given it to him to care for. It had been on his finger when he died. Having been so close to a horcrux before he was rather embarrassed it took him months to realize he was one himself. He prayed to no one in particular that at least the terms of his will had been enacted correctly, aside from some bequests, 100,000 galleons to his wife to enable her to have financial independance and some dark magic books that for him were so rudimentary he wouldn't ever read again which he left to Bella everything, especially his ring and his wand was to be locked in his vault and handed over to the person who came to Gringotts and said the correct phrase. His way of protecting himself and making sure he wasn't stranded without any resources for any length of time.

Why hadn't Tom recognized him? What had he done to himself? And why had he tried to kill baby Harry Potter? Why had Harry become a horcrux instead?

He wasn't going to get any answers incapacitated as he was. He can walk, but not far, he can't take the knight bus as he has no wand (plus such a small child would raise questions), still, he curses Hagrid for his intrusion, another few moments and he might have had Tom's wand. What will happen to it now? It has probably fallen into the clutches of Albus Dumbledore he just prays it hasn't been destroyed, that would devestate Tom, but one problem at a time. luckily he is not scared of the dark as he spends most of his time in the cupboard.

He tolerates the muggles for now, Petunia and her husband feed him, and clothe him, albiet in Dudley's cast offs, which don't fit given how much larger than Harry he is.

Petunia doesn't like him being more advanced than her son (who despite his young age seems so stupid that Harry is pretty sure even if he didn't have his unique advantage that he would be way ahead of the boy), but she seems to decide the fact he is potty trained and can wash himself (though getting in and out of the bath is an annoyance he can climb), means she can spend more time on her precious boy and less on the "freak" and lock him in the cupboard, the don't starve him as such but they do barely feed enough. Being locked in the cupboard so often is actually advantageous to him as he has more time to practice, in a muggle neighbourhood the ministry must be dismissing it as accidental magic since he seems to be being ignored.

Out of paranoia over this he had started with simple, innocent spells, spells he could easily pass off as accidental magic if they were looked into when no ministry officials come knocking on the door of number 4 privet drive he moves onto developing more control of the wandless magic he possesses. After he had mastered enough to unlock the cupboard and steal food, to try and get out there as soon as possible the necromancer spends most of his time excercising his magical core, wandless magic has limitations a lot more can be done with a wand and wand magic is always more powerful as the wand channels the power more effectively, but a powerful practiced wizard should be able to leviate things, unlock door and cast basic charms and hexes wandlessly. Ophiuchus Black was such a wizard, it is always a useful skill to hone, after all one never knows when they will be without their wand.

He had always known by trying to retain his memories of previous lives rather than using horcruxes he would be stuck without his wand for a little bit but he had always assumed Tom would be watching for babies born nine months after his death and that Tom would then kidnap him. He'd expected to wait a few months at most, but he also hadn't thought it would take 11 years for him to be reborn. He had know there was a possibility of a scenario in which both he and Tom were incapacited and he'd have to grow up as a normal child at least for a little bit but he hadn't expected it to end up quite how it had.

Harry is a cute child who could manipulate adults easily with a sweet smile but the Dursleys lie about his origins whenever asked, they say (honestly) that he is the son of Petunia's sister but they say that she and her husband died in a car crash, she uses subtle phrases to imply Lily and James were unemployed hippies who died because James was driving drunk and that their son is disturbed as a result. Of course these people don't know they lock him in a cupboard. He supposes he could think of a way to alert the other muggles to his predicament but he doesn't really want to. He hates it in Privet Drive but an orphanage would be no better. At least here he is largely ignored, he has time to practice his skills.

The adult Dursley's don't beat the young boy, but they don't stop Dudley from hitting him either. So Dudley is the test subject for his hexes. Once he had managed levitating objects and unlocking doors with no reaction he moves onto hexes, minor at first casting jelly legs and stinging hexes at Dudley. That way he can claim if asked by the ministry that they were playing, Dudley is so young, only a few months older than Harry (but not Ophiuchus), even he wonders about the ethics of hurting an actual child who acts that way because his parents spoil him but being smacked a few times remove thoughts of charitable patience from Harry's head, he never claimed to be a nice person and he isn't going to do permanent harm to the child.

He has also been practicing speaking, angry at himself he couldn't communicate with Tom when the situation called for it, he won't be making that mistake again. Next time he sees Tom he'll be able to talk to him.

After hexes he moves onto necromancy, reanimating the corpse of a mouse he found in the garden. Again for plausible deniability he can always pout like a child and say he felt sorry for the mouse and wanted it to get better. It won't be great if his skills are public this early on but he needs to hone them and at his age, as a child ignorant of magic (he imagines no one will expect him to remember Lily and James), he'd get away with nothing more than a stern talking to. Being a child is incredibly irritating but that doesn't mean he is not going to use it to his advantage when he can, and he is so young just two years old they may not even expect an explanation from him.

He is also two when he realizes Little Whinging, Surrey may not be as muggle as he initially though. Petunia and Vernon want to go on an outing somewhere, Harry wasn't paying attention as to where they planned to go because it was clear he wasn't invited.

They dump him on the lady across the street, an old lady named Mrs Figg. Her house is tastelessly decoarated and stinks of cabbage. She has at least a dozen of the creatures... but they aren't all cats as such. He notices two kneazles and several others which might be part kneazle. Is this old lady a witch? Kneazles look so like house cats a muggle wouldn't note them as magical creatures...but a wizard would. His sister Walburga had had a pet kneazle, a fat fluffy lazy queen who had mastered the art of looking at everyone like they were beneath her. Rather like Walburga in that aspect, but so many wizarding families kept them any magical raised person would notice, Lily had even had a large ginger part kneazle, Harry idly wondered what had happened to it, presumably it ran away when it realized no one was around to feed it anymore.

While Mrs Figg is out of the room to make some tea (finally, he couldn't take looking at many more pictures of cats), he looks around the room as much as he can from his limited vantage point. The house it seems is mostly muggle, with none of the usual paraphanelia he would expect from a magical house. However, there is an ash tray full of floo powder on the mantelpiece which he can just about see when he stands up on the sofa while holding onto the back to balance. He sees photographs too, her family he assumes, some of them are wearing robes, wizard typical clothing, he recognizes some of the people, Ignatius Prewett, and Ophiuchus' cousin Lucretia, Lucretia had married Ignatius Prewett so that wasn't unexpected.

The Prewetts tended to have more light sympathies than the Black's but they were still an old pureblood family (they may have wanted muggles treated well but they would never lower themselves to marry them it seemed, which in Ophiuchus' mind made them hypocrites). Still he could see why an existing Squib relative may not be cut off completely...Ignatius had had a squib sister from what Harry remembered. Ignatius had been a Ravenclaw a couple of years older than Ophiuchus they had got on decently well but were never particularly close.

Figg wasn't a magical name but her wedding photo was in the muggle style. Mrs Figg was a Prewett Squib then. Which leads to the question what brings a Prewett squib to Little Whinging. The Prewett's had sided against the dark lord, Lucretia had been hurt by that, but had sided with her husband in the end. Walburga had wanted her sister in law burned off the tapestry for that but Arcturus had refused. So does Mrs Figg know Harry is magical? The Prewett's had been on Dumbledore's side, is this the surveillance Harry was concerned Dumbledore may have set up since he seemed to have taken a personal interest in where Harry was placed? Is it just her or are there others too?

Mrs Figg is a very boring woman though, just showing him pictures of cats and feeding him stale cake. She gives nothing away. She talks a little of herself but nothing helpful, her husband, Albert was a mechanic that died ten years ago, she has one son who lives in Leeds and is an accountant. Sometimes squibs children are magical but not always. He doesn't want to prod at this, indicate he suspects anything, not if she is Dumbledore's informer (and even if her presence is just a coincidence she seems to have enough connections in the wizarding world that Harry doesn't want to risk it). So he lies low the rest of the, very boring, visit. After all a child ignorant of the magical world would know nothing of kneazles, and would not recognize the people in her photographs or notice the floo powder.

A few days after his third birthday, for which he received the grand present of a coat hanger. Petunia tries to get him to start doing chores to earn his keep, she expects him to cook, despite the fact he can't reach the top of the stove, and he has never cooked in his life. Ophiuchus Black had come from a family with an army of house elves, his first mother, hadn't even known how to cooks, his second seemed to have enjoyed it, but he had been fed by Black family elves, then by Hogwarts elves and then by his own personal elf, Taffy, or by the elves at Tom's place. He's never cooked in his life. It was beneath him. Harry Potter hadn't cooked either, for the very reasonable reason that he was three years old, and as stated earlier, couldn't even reach the top of the stove. He was not expert in child rearing especially muggle child rearing but he was also fairly sure children that young shouldn't be given access to knives.

So he looks at his so called aunt in an unimpressed manner. He knows full well he unnerves her. He's good at freaking people out with a single stare. He had long figured out his eyes would condemn him for most people so why not use them to his advantage? Mostly he had used them in his first childhood to panic the Gryffindors, or the odd judgmental adults, by the time he was in his mid twenties he hadn't needed to the rumors about him did that for him the stories that he delved into forbidden dark arts (true), and that he ate human flesh (not true... well apart from that one time when he and Tom got drunk and Tom had dared him but they were both stupid teenagers then and no one could possibly know about that except Tom so it was clearly made up. The fact it hit fairly close to the mark was irrelevant. It wasn't as if he did it a lot. It had tasted OK, if it was put in front of him again he'd probably just eat it but chicken and pork tasted better).

Petunia is too stupid to take the hint though, too stupid to read the danger signs. She had abused Harry before, largely via neglect, locking an actual developing child in the cupboard would cause all sorts of mental and developmental issues he avoided by virtue of having the memories of his past life. So he lays his hand on her bare arm, it is said a necromancer's tough will kill. This isn't true, a necromancer's touch CAN kill. It depends on intent, and really he's always been surprised more people don't pick up on that. Ophiuchus' parents wouldn't have been able to arrange a marriage for him if everyone believed it. He may never have lain with Pandora but he had kissed her on their wedding day (then had to make it up to a very jealous Tom). Other necromancer's had had children though. Implying touch was fine, it was a matter of trust.

And Harry knows he is alone with Petunia. This is a rare opportunity, Dudley is usually around but she had wanted an uninterrupted few hours to "train" him to cook, so Dudley visiting one of his horrible, just a spoiled friends, Piers, Harry thought he was called but he hadn't paid a lot of attentions. Vernon was as usual at this time, at work. So they were all alone. What Petunia didn't realize though was while he was the focus of her complete attention, so in her mind she could correct every error with a sharp word. She was also the focus of his complete attention.

So Harry put his hand on Petunia's arm. He didn't want to kill her, not yet anyway. Not if Dumbledore had placed Mrs Figg to keep checking up on him, and he didn't know how high priority he was in Dumbledore's mind so there may be others, the Ministry may be dismissing his wandless magic as accidental magic, he wasn't sure they'd ignore murder, and if Dumbledore was watching he may investigate Petunia's death anyway, a muggle wouldn't notice what had happened but he, or one of his order members definitely would.

Dumbledore had an advantage over most wizards as well because he had already seen the necromancers eyes set in Harry's face but he didn't want the old man to be aware just how in touch with his powers Harry really was. Further investigation may reveal his darker secrets. Harry Potter may be innocent but Ophiuchus Black would be facing the dementor's kiss, and he didn't know how many of his allies were still around and his greatest ally seemed to have destroyed himself temporarily.

His father would be 81 now, it was feasible he was still alive. If not Yew manor would have passed to Cygnus, given Ophiuchus' lack of children. He wouldn't be fighting his brother for the Yew manor estate if this was the case. Technically and legally Ophiuchus Black had died. He had always known if he went for reincarnation over horcruxes, he would have to give up certain rights when he died, he had planned on living longer but he had always known he would be stepping aside for Cygnus when he returned. For the same reasons he wasn't planning on looking for his wife, widow now. As for the main branch Arcturus would be in his late eighties, so may also have passed away by now. Orion, Cygnus or in the unlikely event Cygnus too was dead, Alphard or even Bella would help him. Corvus or Abraxas too. Pandora might, out of duty, she would be little use for his goals but she might be able to give him information on what had happened the last 11 years. Depending on what had happened in that time he may be friendless, and even if he wasn't it would be difficult to alert his friends and family to his predicament. So he didn't kill Petunia Dursley...not completely. Black marks, which resembled ink stains appeared on her arm, initially she believes his hands to have been filthy, a result of Harry having not cleaned up after himself properly and having touched her with stained hands, she pushes him away calling him a "filthy boy" and sending him back to his cupboard, he acquiesces this time. It's too late, its done. All he needs to do now is wait.

She is still breathing but as soon as he releases her she'll drop dead. To any observers she looks alive, and as she is still breathing, and he used his hands. He's too young for the trace and clearly the magic he does isn't being monitored very closely, the necromancy on the mice would have been picked up if it was.

"Now, I want you to take me somewhere" he tells her and she nods eyes vacant. She takes him out to the car and buckles him into Dudley's car seat. She then gets behind the wheel. Harry knows exactly where he wants to go.

It has taken him until the age of three to be confident in his abilities to control the muggle woman who he has been forced to tolerate for a year and a half. Now he has transportation no one will question why shouldn't his aunt take him for a drive? Maybe they have an appointment with the Doctor, maybe she needs to run errands and in a functional household she wouldn't leave a three year old child alone. It looks innocuous, and won't attract the attention the knight bus would could he access it, he had also dismissed apparation out of hand, in theory he could do wandless apparation but if he splinched himself, he may bleed out before he got help, and even if he was found that would be hard to pass off as accidental magic. While he was unlikely to get in trouble it would attract unnecessary ministry attention. As for muggle methods, a notice me not charm might help him get away with boarding without paying and avoid well meaning muggles trying to help him get home or asking where his family is but muggle transport goes no where near where he wants to go. So now he is being delivered to the door by his aunt.

The thing about wealth in the Black family was that it was pretty centralized. The head of the family (who in Ophiuchus' time was Arcturus) and the head of various secondary branches (namely the Yew Manor Blacks and the Elm cottage Blacks), who would grant allowances to those under their purview. Ophiuchus never owned the cottage he lived in (cottage was a flexible word it had been a two story, five bedroom property with its own library and dueling room), had never belonged to him, so it would have been absorbed back into the estate when he died. He had received a generous allowance though which he had wisely invested. With it he had purchased a secret cottage (again this term was loosely used as the property was a seven bedroom home even larger than his official home). This had been warded by the most extensive wards he could come up with. And this was where he stored his darkest books. Along with multiple vials of ageing potions under a preservation charm which he hoped had still held. This was the place from where Ophiuchus Black's reincarnation would plan his next moves.

He obliviates Petunia when she has, humiliatingly, had to let her get him out of the car seat, but he does not remove the hold on her, not yet he wants to leave it a few days, since she will die when he removes it he will have to come up with a way for her to die that leaves no body, so no one will recognize the signs of necromancy on her. He feels not a single bit of guilt, she's just a muggle after all, he couldn't let her live, not just for her mistreatment of him, but because of how she had treated what she understood to be a helpless magical orphan. There was more to it as well she had seen him as a weak infant. For a muggle to see him so weak. He couldn't let her live after that, his pride would not allow it.

He muttered the pass phrase and entered the safehouse. He reaches for the horcrux in his head as he does so it has become a reflex to do so, in the same way an actual child might reach for a teddy bear or comfort blanket, it isn't enough of Tom for him to communicate with, it's such a small sliver but he misses Tom so much he can't help but reach for it anyway. Then he stops himself and feels the horcrux shrink back into the depths of his mind. It wasn't the time for pine for his lover though, it was time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to go back to work Monday (I had two weeks leave) and its our busiest time of year so updates will be slower from this point on. Chapter 4 is half written so I hope to get it out next week as it will be less work.
> 
> I found the Dursleys hard to write they are clearly abusive towards canon Harry that is clear but some fanfic writers make their abuse way over the top to the point it becomes unrealistic. They are emotionally abusive and neglectful and it is a miracle canon Harry isn't more messed up but while they don't stop Dudley and his friends hurting him but they aren't breaking his ribs every other week like some writers have them doing. I think for a dark wizard in his fifties who just wants to improve his magical potential to get back into the action as soon as possible the fact they keep locking him in the cupboard would be advantageous as he has plenty of time to practice. This isn't to excuse their behaviour but remember my Harry in this fic is not mentally a child. 
> 
> I made Mrs Figg a Prewett because I felt like it. She is described as an old lady but no specific are given. Given Harry meets her when he is 2 (so 1982), at least in this fic in canon it isn't clear when exactly she starts watching him. She is retired and at that time women could recieve a pension from age 60 in the UK so it is reasonable to assume she is at least 60. Which would put her birthdate at 1923 at the latest. I also assume she is not very elderly and frail since she is at least partially involved in the order of the phoenix in the 1990s so I think 1921 is an acceptable birthdate for her while staying within the realms of canon time lines. We have no birthdate for Ignatius Prewett but given he married Lucretia Black who was born 1925 it is reasonable to assume he was born in the 1920s too as he was probably of similar age to his wife. So the dates work. 
> 
> Little easter egg. You know how in the Philosopher's stone Ron mentions Mrs Weasley has a "second cousin who is an accountant". That's Mrs Figg's son. I just felt like putting that in its going to have no relevance to the rest of the story he's not going to show up or anything. Molly was a Prewett but Ignatius Prewett is her uncle so I assume Molly's father would have been brother to Ignatius and Mrs Figg.


	4. Goblins, Ex-wives and snakes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry goes to diagon alley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, I've been really busy lately. I wrote this early November but only just got around to editing it. I have 2 more chapters in my drafts folder I hope to get up over the next week or so as well.

One of the smartest things Ophiuchus Black ever did was to make provision in his will that the daily prophet was to be delivered to his to his safe house and that the Goblins were to allow this payment until it was cancelled by the person who took control of his vaults, or until the vaults were empty (which would have taken centuries if not a couple of thousand years the prophet wasn't expensive). He would be able to catch up on what happened while he was... unavailable.

He had planned for his rebirth after all, and there he had stashed everything he would ever need if he returned in a child's form. Or at least everything he would need in order to get to Gringotts.

The second smartest thing he did was to order his house elf, Taffy to stay in the safehouse. She had, he was pleased to find remained loyal keeping the place spotless, despite the fact it had been abandonded for 14 years and she was ready falling over herself to get her master Ophiuchus tea and biscuits and anything else he may desire as soon as he said the phrase he had chosen to let her know it was him. It would be considerably more comfortable staying here for Merlin knew how long if he had a house elf tending to his every need.

Still, he had fourteen years worth of newspapers to get through 1969 to 1984. This would take a long time, 5113 copies of the daily prophet. It would take months to go through completely.

Realizing he doesn't have the patience he takes three weeks and focuses on papers based on key dates, around Ophiuchus Black's death and around the time whatever happened in Godric's hollow went down.

He spends most of these three weeks in an armchair just reading, staying up late and waking up early. He'd have forgetten to eat if Taffy wasn't there constantly making him tea and snacks, he was so skinny she was concerned.

Harry was feeling bereft, after his death Tom seems to have gone off the deep end. The pair had always flittered close to the edge of madness but always been able to pull each others back but now, without him... it had gone wrong.

He starts with the papers just after Ophiuchus Black's death, his death got quite a lot of coverage he was pleased to see. Most negative referring to him as a dark wizard but he didn't really care about that. He reads with horror of a polarizing war ramping up from what had, in Ophiuchus Black's time been political manoeveruing and assassinations to full on terrorism, mascaraing the very populous they wished to get on side.

He reaches the early 70s and then he skips ahead and reads of the boy who lived, and discovers he, Harry Potter is famous, for not dying at the hands of the dark Lord Voldemort. He throws his head back and laughs in a mixture of genuine amusement and shock as he discovers he is an icon of the light.

He reads on about the chaos that followed Voldemort's disappearance (he isn't dead Harry knows he isn't dead even if his body was destroyed). he reads about Sirius Black's arrest for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and remembers Sirius' last words in his presence "I'm going after the rat". If Sirius was dark why would weak pathetic Peter be the subject of his ire? It made no sense. Sirius was in Azkaban now, painted as a follower of the dark lord, was he really? Sirius had seemed heartbroken at Lily and James' death and Harry had seen him in a muggle t-shirt at one point, he had no dark mark. Though he knew that meant nothing his mother hadn't had one either and Harry knew where her loyalties lay. He had had no trial either it seemed, that was odd. If he was a death eater he could be used, if he wasn't... well he was Harry Potter's godfather if he was innocent he could be a better guardian than the Dursleys (of the wizarding world but easy to manipulate) he would have to talk to his family to get a gauge on the situation and so many of his family were gone as well.

His father lived but given Cygnus was described as being regent in a few articles it was to be assumed his elderly father was not doing well. So it would be Cygnus he went to first. As for the Grimmauld Blacks, old Arcturus seemed to be still going but Orion had passed on before his father. Nothing of Alphard, positive or otherwise they hadn't seen eye to eye ever but Ophiuchus had loved Alphard best of all his siblings, even though Cygnus and Walburga were more like him. Walburga lived too, though her younger son had died and her eldest had clearly been disowned. Aunt Cassiopeia may be of use too, his father's old maid sister she would live at Yew manor still. Lucretia would be no use due to her husband's family. More distant relatives such as Callidora and Cedrella were also out having married a Longbottom and a Weasley respectively Callidora's loyalties were uncertain and Cedrella had been disowned.

The day after he finished the final newspaper, dated yesterday he woke up early and used the ageing potion, for the first time in fourteen years he could actually reach things. He looked about 25 years old, he would grow up to look quite a bit like James Potter but there was something of the Blacks in him too, around his features, he still resembled Ophiuchus Black and not just because of his eyes, he was partially pleased about this, he may have been being vain but Ophiuchus Black had been a handsome man, but he is also concerned someone may make the connection especially with the eyes. It isn't such an issue for him in his child form but Dumbledore had been Ophiuchus Black's teacher too, as he gets older it may still be an issue.

He has Taffy apparate him directly in diagon alley, house elf magic is often discounted but can be so helpful under certain circumstances, it isn't foolproof, an elf can apparate into Hogwarts but a person would be splinched by the wards. But an adult wizard could apparate freely into diagon alley with they wished and as Harry has no wand to get past the barrier and has no wand to get through the brickwall it is the best option.

He heads straight for Gringotts, early on a weekday it is not very busy. He walks up to the desk and says "I am here to claim Ophiuchus Black's vault."

The goblin raises an eyebrow looking at Harry skeptically which is fair given the circumstances.

"This way sir" is all the comment the goblin passes on the matter. Why challenge someone you believe to be a liar when the tests will out a thief or a liar far more easily and more painfully.

He is led into a private room and the goblin locks the door and smiles nastily, hoping he fails so they can do something horrible to him but Harry opens the box placed in front of him with the required phrase. It opens to reveal his vault key. He gives the goblin an unamused look.

"If you'll come this way sir we'll escort you to your vault" the goblin said.

One ride on the carts later and his two most valued possessions, Ophiuchus Black's wand and Marvolo Gaunt's ring are back in his possession the wand tucked in a holster up his sleeve and the ring on his finger. He had his wand and the horcrux back. He feels considerably more comfortable now, the wand a comforting sensation against his inner forearm, the ring reacts strangely with his scar both heat up and fizz in some sort of recognition. But the soul piece in the ring is much larger, it was only the second horcrux Tom ever made, on the diary was larger. He turns to leave then turns back almost immediately, he needs to take some galleons too, it would be easy to foget he needs funding.

He doesn't want to head back to the safe house quite yet so he wanders into diagon alley, he has no real need to be here but he has been away from his own kind for so long. He needs a bit of fresh air and to watch the wizarding world.

He ambles through the shops for a while, he is briefly tempted by knockturn alley but restrains himself for now. His library is better than anything that could be found down there and he has no clandestine meetings set up. Instead he wanders through Flourish and Blotts, Quality Quidditch supplies and glances at Eyelops. He could really do with an owl.

He decided to go to Florian Fortescue's first, no reason he just fancied some ice cream it had been a long time even in his previous life since he had done anything like that on a whim, so consumed in his hunts for knowledge and Tom's cause. But today the sun was shining, he was alive and he wanted ice cream.

Fortescue's was now run by the son of the proprietor Ophiuchus Black remembered but still the best ice cream in the wizarding world. He sits outside eating a HUGE sundae and watching people go past. A plump woman with a gaggle of red headed children, probably a Weasley or at least married to one, a grey haired elderly woman who... Minerva McGonagall. She is still a handsome woman though nearly sixty, she had been at school with Ophiuchus Black and she had been smoking hot. He considers going up to her and talking, she had after all been one of Dumbledore's lot and he is a stranger but just as he is thinking of a good lie a reason to follow her into Flourish and Blotts, grey eyes catch his.

A woman in her late forties, pale blond hair and grey eyes. Pandora. Her eyes meet his and she freezes.

Pandora was never stupid. She knows his eyes and she knows he has seen her, she approaches him timidly.

"It is you, isn't it?" she asks softly.

"Hello Pandora" he says in confirmation.

"But...I saw your body" she sits down opposite him so as not to attract too much attention instead now it looks like they are friends who met by chance. Not entirely a lie but Pandora was born a Malfoy she knows even now how things will look even if she no longer cares, judging by the bright purple of her robes. She'd never dressed like that when he was alive.

"Oh I did die." He tells her "You need not fear me Pandora. I died. I'm someone else now. Not Ophiuchus Black" he looks at her wedding ring. It is not the one he gave her decades ago.

"What's his name?" he asks with what he hopes is a reassuring smile but Pandora doesn't take it that way as she tenses up. "I died, as far I am concerned our marriage ended with my death. You never loved me anyway. I can't blame you for that. I wasn't exactly husband of the year."

"you weren't that bad."

"Its OK really. It was never you you know. In different circumstances I think I could have been happy with you... it was no fault of yours our disastrous marriage its just... I loved him. I felt I had a duty to marry you because it was what my father promised yours, I thought if I refused well... I was talented and influential enough even then I could have probably got away with it without being disowned but to be rejected... I thought if I rejected you I'd ruin your life when it wasn't your fault, and since I couldn't be with who I really wanted publicly anyway. I thought the kindest thing to do was to marry you. In hindsight that was probably a bad decision. I'd have humiliated you to reject you but you could perhaps have recovered quicker than spending 14 years in a loveless marriage."

"For pureblood girls of my generation, you were considered the best match. Your cousin Orion may have one day become head of the Black's as a whole but you were only slightly less wealthy, you were considered more handsome and you were so powerful. When I was young I thought I was so lucky. I had all these childish ideas that we'd get married and you'd love me. By the time I was 21 and we actually got married I'd abandoned those childlike ideals, by that time I knew you weren't interested in women and I could have lived with you not loving me" Pandora told him softly.  
"I'm not actually gay, I'm not attracted to men in general, I'm not really attracted to women either though. Just him. It was always just him."

"It wouldn't have been ideal and I wouldn't have ever been completely happy but I could have tolerated it. If you had only been warmer to me. To call you cruel would be excessive, I never wanted for any material goods, you even indulged my interests but a bit of friendliness, and a child. I would have accepted one night and then you never touching me again. But that was what was hard to bare being your wife. Not your love for another man. I felt sorry for you, because I understood you couldn't love who you really wanted openly. I didn't resent you for not loving me, so many from old pureblood families don't get the love of their life. But you didn't have to shut me out like you did. Plenty of others marry without love and made it work. It wasn't that you didn't love me, it wasn't even that you shunned my bed for...his" she pauses at the word not speaking his name "it was that you didn't even try to form a friendly partnership. I was willing to settle for that, but you weren't and of course everyone blamed me. When you pulled your brother and mine along with you on your rise of course they'd blame me when I couldn't do anything for them and you raised them up. And then you went and died do you know what it was like being your widow?"

"I made sure you wouldn't be poor" he tells her.

"It's not the money, you were generous there you were always generous with money, but money is easy, not like emotion. I would never have starved without you. I would have had a place either at Yew manor or Malfoy manor forever but I would have been irrelevant, a childless widow. And no one either of our families would consider acceptable wanted to marry me either, I was married for 14 years and had no children. Of course the reason for that was you never lay with me but I could hardly say my late husband, the dark's great hero, second only to their precious dark lord was too busy shagging said dark lord to be interested in me could I? He'd have killed me. So you left me a rich widow with the option to buy my own property and be independent. I thank you for that, but that didn't end my problems because you were so polarizing. Plenty hated you and shunned me for having been your wife. You left me rich but you also left me without a place in either the dark or the light." 

"What did you do?" he asks.

"I bought myself a little cottage, I continued my experiments, and I met someone."

"Do you love him?"

"Yes."

He is genuinely pleased about this. He never wished Pandora harm but he wouldn't have inconvenienced himself to make her happy when she was his wife. If she's happy that assuages his guilt a little.

"So what's his name?" Harry asks again.

"Xenophilius Lovegood"

Xenophilius Lovegood is a weird man about ten years younger than Pandora but he refrains from commenting on that. Lovegood is a pureblood, but only marginally better than the Weasley's his distant cousin Cedrella married into. Ophiuchus refrains from comment on this too.

"How did Abraxas take it?"

"He wasn't pleased but he didn't disown me for it... no one wanted to marry Ophiuchus Black's widow. He didn't care though, he saw me and only me."

Had she been born a Black she may have been disowned anyway as Cedrella was, the Malfoy's were marginally more practical, and Abraxas though he had been one of Ophiuchus' best friends had known what was really going on between him and the dark lord. He had never explicitly been told but he had put two and two together, while he tolerate it he must have know what that did to his sister. Ophiuchus can't resent her for choosing a man very different to him. Abraxas would have understood.

"I have a daughter now, she's two, her name is Luna" Pandora continues with a smile.

He reaches out and squeezes her hand "I wish you well Pandora, truly I do. I don't intend to seek you out again. Go and be happy and I will leave you be. Just tell me first...Abraxas, does he still live?"

Pandora shook her head, "there was a dragon pox epidemic in the late 1970s" she explains "it killed a lot of people...how long have you been around?"

"Not long this is an ageing potion I was reborn in 1980."

"So you're stuck in the body of a child?" she asked unable to keep the amused smile off her face.

"Yes very funny" Ophiuchus said "I only got back into the wizarding world a few weeks ago."

"So you don't know then?" Pandora said.

"What?"

"The epidemic, it took your aunt Dorea and her husband Charlus Potter...it also took Alphard."

Alphard, Ophiuchus' youngest brother. They hadn't always seen eye to eye, Alphard had more liberal sympathies, not light as such but he always felt his elder brothers went too far. Ophiuchus had loved him though. More than Cygnus anyway, though Cygnus had been more loyal, more like him.

He'd have been so young, just in his forties, Ophiuchus Black died in his forties too but he'd died bloody...he couldn't remember what killed him but he felt certain it wasn't natural causes. Necromancers rarely die of natural causes.

"I'm so sorry. I know that you loved him."

She's a good woman Pandora, better than he deserved. She had been right to chastise him for his treatment of her and she was kind to try to comfort him now. 

"You know who else is gone?" she asks very carefully as if fearing an explosion.

"My dark lord" he whispers "but he is not gone, not truly"

Terror flashes across Pandora's still pretty face.

"I have plans Pandora, you know me well enough to intuit that. I was never good to you I admit it, and that was not your fault. You were perfect, another man would have been more grateful to be given you. I can promise you one thing though I will do whatever I can to shield your family."

"He hated me"

"Because he was jealous. You've remarried, you moved on. He has no reason to go after you. I'm using a different name now, but you have any problems you send an owl. Goodbye Pandora, if you need help I will help you, I will shield your family, still I hope you never have need of my help. I hope you never need to contact me again."

"Me too, good bye Ophiuchus" she smiled then she held out her hand to shake his "friends?"

"Friends" he agreed.

Pandora was a better person than him. Freely admitted it, but by the time he had left Fortescue's and headed down the street to Eyelope's he had put the encounter from his mind.

The magical menagerie is closer than Eyelopes so he goes in there instead on a whim. They don't have many owls but it is August he realizes and first years going off to Hogwarts will have bought up most of the stock so they can write letters home without having to resort to the school owls.

There are birds of the more exotic variety, some can be trained to deliver letters but they don't work as well as owls. Kneazles, rodents, reptiles mostly snakes and larger lizards. Nothing to catch his interest really he is about to leave when-

"Bored" he hears a voice say and turns around but he doesn't see anyone except the manager who is up a ladder restocking tins of kneazle treats, besides the voice was definitely coming from behind him.

He turns and see a huge terrarium inside is a large green mamba. He missed having snakes around they reminded him of Tom.

"Oh you are beautiful" he says forgetting he heard the voice.

"I know" the snake replied.

"Did you just talk?" he says rather idiotically, as his brain catches up with what just happened.

"Of course I can talk speaker"

Speaker? Since when has he been a parselmouth. Ophiuchus Black had not been, he had spent enough time around Tom to know that, he had heard Tom speak parseltongue and he was familiar enough with the language he could recognize a few words but it had always sounded like hissing to him, he had not had the gift, so why did Harry Potter who was not a descendant of Salazar Slytherin? If the Potter's were Slytherin descendants he would have known given how much of Tom's research he had been involved in, and his mother was a muggleborn, no Slytherin there either. As far as he knew parseltongue was not a spontaneously occurring gift. It could have been the soul piece Tom had left in his scar affecting him but it was such a small sliver he would have assumed if he could get Tom's gifts from the soul piece he would at least have been able to communicate with part of Tom. 

He misses Tom so much on a whim he calls the shopkeeper over.

"How much for the mamba?" he asks.

"Are you sure sir?" the shopkeeper asks nervously "they aren't good pets if you don't know what you are doing?" as Ophiuchus Black he was around basilisks enough that he knows how to care for a snake, even if he didn't parseltongue means the snake can communicate its needs to him.

Harry meets the shopkeepers gaze with his necromancer's eyes. He can hear alarm bells ringing in the other wizard's head, he is wondering how to get away from the dark wizard.

"Just sell me the snake" he sighs, he's too tired to deal with this right now and doesn't feel like explaining himself or making up a convincing lie.

The shopkeeper wisely does so.

It is only when he leaves (having had Taffy return the mamba to his cottage) he remembers he was actually after owls, so heads to Eyelopes.

Thirty minutes later he leaves with a beautiful white snowy owl.


	5. The Blacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry reunites with some of Ophiuchus Black's family members.

Harry got drunk that night, which was, in hindsight a spectacularly bad idea. He needed some kind of outlet, seeing Pandora again had brought back a lot of guilt but even worse, and he was self aware enough to feel guilty about it was how much he missed Tom.

He let the owl who he named Hedwig on a whim after female King of Poland out for excercise. He would have named the owl after a star, in Black fashion but if he was to present her as Harry Potter's owl, such a name would draw attention, not by many people, but a clever man like Dumbledore, who would be watching him anyway due to his eyes and apparent fame may put two and two together. He does give into the impulse with his other animal companion and names the mamba Rasalhague or Rasal for short, after the brightest star in the constellation of Ophiuchus he was named for in his first life. Rasal also demands to be let out, Harry has set up a large warm rock in the middle of the living room for him to stretch out on. Taffy is a little afraid of Rasal but Harry orders his new pet not to eat his servant. And then animal's needs taken care of, he gets drunk.

He was still in his adult body, but he hadn't had a drink in 14 years and it seemed he had lost all his tolerance for it. He had not been teetotal in his previous life but he had never been a big drinker, when you delved deep into dark magic you couldn't afford to slow your reflexes.

But what was he supposed to do? Grief for his brother, for his friend Abraxas, guilt over Pandora, guilt over Alphard. And he didn't want to think about why he was a parselmouth either. The implications of that gave him a headache. It wasn't a Potter trait and Lily had been a mudblood. The only thing he could think off what the horcrux was lending him some of Tom's powers but when he had tried to investigate he only got a splitting headache. The horcrux was fairly benign, and a necromancers who had experimented frquently was fascinated by the implications of being a human horcrux, but every time he thought of it he couldn't help thinking about how much he missed Tom as well.

So he got drunk and woke up having changed back to his "true" form over night. So he was now not only a three year old but a hung over three year old... brilliant.

After multiple cups of tea and pepper up he is finally largely functional. Enough to look read today's newspaper at least.

He is on the front page. He, as in Harry Potter, not Ophiuchus Black.

HARRY POTTER MISSING, FEARED DEAD

by Rita Skeeter

Harry Potter, age 3, the boy whose famous survival of the killing curse lead to the vanquishing of you-know-who has dissapeared from his home at an undisclosed location. Potter was placed with his muggle born mother's sister and her husband and yesterday Potter's muggle aunt Petunia Dursley was found burned up in her car (a muggle contraption similar to a metal carriage used for getting around), witnesses state Mrs Dursley left the home with her nephew whose body was not found in the car.

Harry Potter was placed with muggle relatives by Albus Dumbledore, Dumbledore has not made any comment on why he felt it was suitable to place the most famous child in the wizarding world with muggles who would be unable to inform him of his heritage or even to defend him. Amelia Bones, from the department of magical law enforcement has said "we will leave no stone unturned in our search for Harry Potter."

Well that was useful. He could now slip under the radar and if he needed to be Harry Potter again he could play the returning hero. He was still considering exploiting his fame among the light though it had slipped down his priority list when compared to finding Tom, and his family.

Now he has his want he moves onto the next item, reuinited with his brother, he does it the evening after he gets drunk giving himself time to recover so he doesn't do something stupid.

He slips into Yew manor at dusk under the influence of another ageing potion, he will have to give those a rest soon to avoid over using them and poisioning himself. He sees his father sleeping in a chair by the fire. Pollux Black had been in his sixties when Ophiuchus last spoke to him, not in his eighties his hair which was black and then iron grey is now white, he has become thinner, frail. They hadn't been close, Pollux like many of his family, or indeed any wealthy pureblood family, had largely left the raising of his children to house elves. Ophiuchus hadn't been overly attatched to his father, but he never resented him either, they worked well together and Ophiuchus had respected him. To see him like this. It was unnerving.

He passes his father without saying a word. With all the potions surrounding him on the nesting tables...he recognizes a potion used to treat dementia. Unsure of his father's condition he decides to leave him be, he cannot risk him getting confused and saying something to the wrong person. Maybe after speaking to Cygnus he will consider it when he has a better understanding of the situation.

A light is on in Pollux's study, though Pollux is not there, Harry slips in, glad he waited until he had his wand to strengthen the dissillusionment charms, the Blacks are a paranoid bunch by nature. His blood helps him fool the wards more easily, even in this body he has a modicum of Black blood from Dorea, his aunt in his first life, his grandmother in his second.

Cygnus was only fifty five years old, not young but not old either, but his hair was streaked with grey and he looked older than his years.

Harry flicked his wand and used a necromantic freezing curse to freeze his younger brother in place. He didn't do so out of malice but because he knew Cygnus would need evidence before he believed his tale and was unlikely to sit still long enough for Harry to talk.

He pulls back his mask so Cygnus, frozen in place can see the necromancer's eyes.

"Hello little brother" he says with a smile "its OK I'm not going to hurt you, its me, Ophiuchus. Its a long story and I knew you wouldn't sit still to listen so I had to freeze you in place."

"My brother's are both dead" Cygnus responded still fighting against the hex.

"Yes I did die, but I was reborn... I did this ritual, it didn't make me immortal that isn't really possible but it did allow to retain my memories when I was reborn. So I am Ophiuchus Black with all his memories, wants and beliefs but I am also somoene else you see."

"I don't believe you."

"Smart kid"

"I'm fifty five"

"I remember you throwing food and wiping your nose on your sleeve don't get haughty with me Cyg" Harry retorted.

"It is you, isn't it?" Cygnus asked.

"I figured that Tom would find me. I was wrong so I'm adapting."

"Tom?"

"The dark lord...it went very wrong though it took eleven years for me to be reborn not nine months and lets just say I'm in the body of a three year old on ageing potion but I've had an eventful three years."

"Ophiuchus you do know what happened to the dark lord?"

"They say he dissapeared. I'm going to bring him back though."

Cygnus winced, "let us be blunt" he said, "whatever else you are your my brother and I missed you... you loved him didn't you... not as a lord. Or not just as a Lord you and he... "

"I loved him yes. I still do" Ophiuchus said cutting him off.

"He changed after you died."

"I had surmised as much...I'm going to fix him though."

"Fix him?"

"I know things, about both him and dark magic that make me believe it is possible. But I'm going to need your help brother."

"Do you know what happened after you died."

"I know my wife ran off with Lovegood" he said lightly, "not sure whether to be offended or not. I never loved her and wasn't planning on continuing our relationship I did die after all, but Lovegood really?"

He doesn't really mean it he's trying to lighten the mood. It doesn't work given the look on Cygnus' face.

"The dark lord went mad and he was merciless to his followers as well as his enemies, the dark lord was always vicious but we could live with that given his strength, and the rewards for serving him, but then you died... and he got much much worse, he would crucio us for the slightest error, real or imaginary. Then he was gone and we were persecuted even worse by the ministry than we were before. I got out of it. Abraxas and Corvus did too. But we lost a lot of our credibility and position."

"What about the children? Bella, Rodolphus and Lucius?"

Cygnus winced "Bella loved you you know, she idolized you, wanted to be just like you."

"I know"

"So when the dark lord was gone what do you think she did?"

"If it had been me I'd have rounded up members of the phoenix and tortured them for answers."

"And that's what Bella did, and Rodolphus and Rabastan too. Tortured the Longbottoms to insanity. Life in Azkaban even you can't get them out of there... my little girl locked up because of what you filled her head with."

"Well you never fought me on any of it" Harry retorts, Cygnus winces because it is true.

He winces when he thinks of pretty eighteen year old Bella locked in that place, he knows intellectually she must be older but that is the picture in his head.

"And your other girls?"

"Andromeda ran off with a mudblood I disowned her of course and offered Narcissa in her place as a bride for Lucius, they seem happy. They have a son Draco, but those of Black blood are dwindling. Orion and Walburga's line is gone too, Regalus died... he joined up then changed his mind, the dark lord murdered him. Sirius is in prison."

"Yes I heard he was disowned, then I heard he was in Azkaban. Was he a death eater or not?"

"I don't know. I never heard of him being one but the dark lord alone knew who we all were... though I always wondered if you knew all of us."

"I did" Harry confirmed, he had known nearly everything, he was his most trusted, his confidant as well as his second in command. The was the first to be marked and he knew everything, "but Sirius wouldn't have joined prior to my death he'd have been too young."

"He never got a trial, after the dark lord fell, we never pushed for one, no need to draw attention to ourselves. Either he was dark and knew what he was getting into like my Bella did. Or he was a traitor and deserves what he got."

Cygus Black suddenly looks very old and very young all at once "why didn't you come back sooner?"

"I thought I'd be reborn either instantly or in nine months depending on whether the soul entered the body at conception or birth. I was wrong it took 11 years. I'm using an ageing potion my physical body is three years old and let me tell you learning to walk and talk again was a pain. I finally made my way to Gringotts though, got my wand back, all my most precious possessions."

"That's why your will was how it was" Cygnus realized, "you expected to return."

"Indeed I did little brother."

"So don't you have parents... or people that believe they're your parents worrying about where their 3 year old went?"

"They were murdered."

"By you?"

"No not by me though I have murdered my second mother's sister. Filthy arrogant muggle bitch that she was. I was... and this is where everything starts to get complicated..."

"...starts to get complicated" Cygnus said semi hysterically. Cygnus had been a loyal son of the house of Black, reliable and obedient, but he had lacked his elder brother's imagination or daring and this was now showing.

"Oh yes I haven't even got to the complicated stuff yet" Harry grinned back, he had always enjoyed winding up Cygnus.

"Well if there were any doubts it was you... I think you've dispelled them" Cygnus sighed "you always left chaos in your wake. Trying to compete with you as a child was a nightmare."

"I never thought you should have to compete with me" Harry said "I would never have hurt you, when I rose I brought you with me didn't I? I would have done the same for Alphard if he had let me. I pushed forward Bella and had I not died I'd have done the same for your other daughters."

"Alphard once said your one redeeming quality was your love of your family" Cygnus said.

"He may have been right" Harry admits.

"I don't doubt you loved us but being your brother, you were the heir so you naturally got more attention and you weren't well when you were a child so you got more attention due to that as well. Then you started school and became brilliant and popular, you started this revolution. I was resigned to always being in your shadow by this point I could have dealt with that but then you died and left us to fend for ourselves. We retained our wealth but most of our status is gone, death eaters and death eater sympathizers because Black, the name became synonymous with you and your infamous skills."

"I'm sorry" Harry said "I'm going to try to make this right."

"So what's next."

"I was reborn as Harry Potter."

"Please tell me that is a very bad joke" Cygnus gawped a look of horror on his face when Harry merely shrugged apologetically "then why did you destroy the dark lord? How did you destroy the dark lord?"

"I don't know. I never meant to. He came after my second parents, killed them, tried to kill me. I tried to talk to him to let him know it was me but if it took 11 years he may have stopped looking for me. He knew of the ritual I did but it isn't the sort of ritual you can test for efficacy without dying. It wouldn't have been unreasonable for him to assume it failed. And he just lost his body. He's not dead, not completely and I have an idea how to fix him. But I need your help little brother. I fully intend to use my background as "Harry Potter" to my advantage, it should give me an unquestioning in to the light side if I need it, especially if I return as a lost hero... they all think I'm dead after all."

"I read about that in the prophet. I'm guessing you killed the muggle woman and escaped?"

"Pretty much had to make sure she burned so they didn't see the marks of necromancy on her. I have the necromancer's eyes even as Harry Potter, Dumbledore's seen me but he won't know I'm Ophiuchus Black as well even if he associates the two of us because of our skills. He is very interested in making sure little Harry was raised by muggles, which means he needs me for something. I'm going to find out what. But that means I will need you to be my link with the dark and to fill me in on what I have missed."

"What can I do?" Cygnus sighed "we both know I'll help you. I always did. But you have to promise me something this time brother."

"What is it?"

"Get Bella out of Azkaban. If anyone can do it isn't you."

"I would have to avoid detection, we'd have to make sure she wasn't missed... she wouldn't be free if I got her out Cygnus, not completely you would have to pretend ignorance."

"But she'd be out."

"I'll think on the best way to do it. For now, I understand Abraxas is gone, does Corvus live?"

"Yes"

"Can Abraxas' son be trusted? If he married Narcissa and is happy with her he should be at least partially trustworthy?"

"He's very good, stayed in power and kept his influence better than we did."

"Call Corvus and Lucius then."

"Now?"

"Yes now" he was getting impatient now.

"Who else are you going to tell? Father?"

"How senile is he?"

"He's not always senile, but sometimes he thinks you or Alphard are still alive."

"I'll see him but not involve him in the plans then."

"That's wise" Cygnus conceded "but do visit him at least give him that kindness you were always his favourite. What of our sister?"

"Is she likely to be helpful? If she lost her son to the dark lord..."

"Walburga resents her sons for failing her, she will be on your side."

"But she is impulsive" Harry continued, "we can't afford to be impulsive here. I will think on that. I might involve Orion."

"Orion is dead too."

Harry sighed "too many are gone."

He was sitting in an armchair by the fire in the main withdrawing room when Cygnus returned with a tall pale blonde man who must have been Lucius all grown up, he was accompanied by a beautiful woman who must have been Narcissa and Corvus, Ophiuchus' last living close friend.

"Your eyes" is the first thing Corvus says to him  
.  
"Hello old friend, it has been a long time" Harry answers. He had missed Corvus.

"Ophiuchus?" Corvus dares to ask hopefully.

"Yes" he turns to the blondes "Lucius, Narcissa, its good to see you both all grown up. I am sorry about your father Lucius."

"Thank you sir" Lucius says nervously, well this isn't exactly a nromal situation.

"Sit down all of you, we need to chat... all of you know me. Lucius, Narcissa you would not know me well enough to know the intricacy of my plans simply by virtue of your age when I died you were both Hogwarts age. But you would be old enough to remember me at least."

"Are you going to find the dark lord?" Lucius asked.

"Yes. I'm going to heal him. I am also going to help him I understand he changed after my death. But to do this I will need help. Mostly information at this stage. Can I trust you all?"

"Of course" Corvus said "but my sons..."

"I heard" Harry says cutting him off "I'm going to try and get them out, I already promised I'd try for Bella. I wouldn't ask the same of you I will ask of my brother and deny you the same boon. I've known you too long. I can't promise quick results I will need to think on it but I promise to do everything in my power to get them out."

"What do you need?" Corvus Lestrange asked his old, long dead, friend.

"First of all, did the dark lord ever give you something to look after, something he told you to protect."

"Not me, but he gave something to Bella. I believe it is locked in her vault."

"Her vault which none can access because Gringotts follows their own rules and doesn't allow confiscation of assets for crimes... good old Gringotts I recently exploited that loophole myself. When we get Bella out we'll deal with that then. Anyone else? Cygnus?"

"Not me" Cygnus denied "the Black's lost a lot of his favour when you died. Bella kept some but myself and Orion, not so much." That makes sense, Tom never favoured the Blacks he favoured Ophiuchus Black.

"Me" Lucius said before the necromancer got to him, "he gave me something... well he gave it to my father but when he was dying he asked me to return it to the dark lord who then ordered me to continue guarding it."

"Bring it to me" Harry said sharply slipping back into his old role as the dark lord's most feared enforcer. Which seems a sharp dose of reality to his various friends and relatives, so far he had been reasonably calm and polite, it was easy to forget who he was but they were rapidly remembering, the dark lord wasn't the only one that would crucio people who annoyed him. 

Lucius seemed hesitant. "The dark lord said, I was to guard it with my life that he'd kill me if I let it fall into another's hands."

"Presumably this was after I was dead, since I predeceased Abraxas?"

"Yes sir" well at least he is still respectful, it had been fairly common for the death eaters below him (which was all of them) to address him as "sir", a title slightly below "my lord" as they called the dark lord but still recognizing his power and importance. 

"Lucius, your father was one of my best friends, I was very fond him, further more you are my nephew twice over, through my former marriage to your aunt and your marriage to my niece. For her sake I hope you lead a long happy life. If you don't bring it to me Lucius, you won't need to worry about the dark lord because I'll kill you myself." Then he softens a bit "I can protect you from his fury you know? Not that he will be angry with you, not if he knew what I was doing."

"Things got worse when Ophiuchus died" Corvus adds trying to reassure Lucius, "when he lived, and I know you remember him but you won't know what meetings were like when he lived. When he was the dark lord's second things were a lot better."

Lucius submitted to the will of the older death eaters and left to fetch what Ophiuchus hoped was a horcrux.

The head of the Malfoy family returned with an item Ophiuchus was intimately familiar with.

"Its just an old book" Cygnus frowned confused.

"No, it isn't" Ophiuchus smiled he holds out a hand "give it to me" he demands eagerly and Lucius obeys, the necromancer stroked the cover lovingly, he could feel the power of this horcrux, the first horcrux, it fizzed when it came in contact with his ring and the pounding in his head where the scar was confirmed it. Ophiuchus would have known anyway even without the scar and the ring. He had been there when this horcrux it was made.

"Lucius you are my new favourite person" he smiled again manically. Lucius didn't seem to know if this was a compliment or a potential problem. He seemed to realizing how volatile Ophiuchus Black was. He was a connection the young Malfoy patriach had exploited in certain circles but one whose madness he had been too young to fully understand. He was rapidly beginning to understand. 

"Now I need to fill you all in on a few key details..." he recounts his life story (his second life) to an enraptured audience of his family and allies. All the while stroking the cover of the diary. He is itching to leave already. He did mean it when he told Cygnus he loved his family and he was thrilled to see his niece and nephew all grown up and to reaquaint himself with his oldest friend but he had another horcrux and this would be the easiest one to activate. He could have Tom back, at least in some form. And for him Tom had always come first.

"Gentlemen, and little Cissy" he said nodding towards his niece "I will be in touch."

"You're leaving? What about father?" Cygnus asked.

"I will come back" Harry explained though to be honest he wasn't sure when "I have things to do."

"Is there a way to contact you?" Corvus asked.

"Owl, do not address them to Harry Potter, that point is important. Address them to the occupier of Serpens cottage. They will get to me."

He walks out of his childhood home with a wide smile on his face, between the diary and the ring he now has 75% of Tom's soul and it is time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Tom, or at least a horcrux version of Tom.


	6. The diary and the ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has a chat with several of Tom's horcruxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have now run out of already written chapters to edit so I will have to sit down and actually write chapter 7. I'm hoping I'll be able to do a few more over Christmas but I am super busy at work for the next week and a bit before I get time off. I also need to finish Fullmetal alchemist, Golden King and there are a couple of Hobbit one shots I have ideas for.

Harry stays in his childlike form for the next few days. It is dangerous to take too much ageing potion specially with only a tiny body with an equally tiny liver to process the toxins of the potion, it is like drinking a couple of glasses of wine a day, fine for a healthy adult in the short term though doing it every day for years might be a problem, but risky for a child.

Despite these valid points it isn't health concerns that prevent him taking ageing potion though, more that he is only focused on one thing. He doesn't sleep, he barely eats except when Taffy reminds him. If not for the little house elf he would have long collapsed from exhaustion and hunger by now, not that he would have cared in his current state.

As soon as he had returned to the safe house he had just stared at the horcruxes, the ring and the diary for over an hour just reveling in the familiarity of Tom's magic as if the man himself stood before him embracing him, before he can gather his thought enough to do anything.

The diary is the largest soul piece, the best place to start. So he pries open the cover stroking it gently as if it were his lover's human cheek, warm and soft rather than the cold cover of a horcrux.

He is trembling as he picks up his quill and writes his first sentence.

_Hello Tom_

_Hello darling _is a near instantaneous response it has been years since Tom called him that, he only ever called him that in private and only when they were younger, even before Ophiuchus Black's death it had been several years since Tom called anything like that.__

The terms of endearment dripping from the lips of this particular man seemed out of character, they had started as flippant remarks, almost played off as jokes, when they were teenagers, as he would call his old friend "sweetheart" or "darling" casually. Tom was pretty messed up emotionally, Ophiuchus had always known this, concieved under amortentia how could he be anything else?

Ophiuchus had loved Tom, always loved Tom, it hadn't been sexual at first but it had always been romantic, even when he was too young to know what that really meant, and Tom... hadn't loved him back, at least not in the same way. Tom cared for Ophiuchus more than he had cared for anyone else, he was the only other person whose comfort and happiness he truly cared for, he had been proud of him and possessive but selfless love... it had never been there, not for Tom. Ophiuchus had understood their relationship wasn't equal. He could live with that, what he hadn't been able to live with was was the first time they had lain together when Ophiuchus had whispered "I love you" and Tom had responded with the lie "I love you too." Ophiuchus had told him not to lie, told Tom he could live with him as he was but if he was going to lie he would leave. Tom had never lied to him again, but he had never said "I love you" again either.

The endearments were a compromise, Tom's possessive nature, without actually lying. Ophiuchus had tolerated them, though Tom had long since stopped bothering, this was a teenage Tom in mind at least.

He wanted to cry.

_You recognize me then?_

_Of course I do, your magic is...unique._

_As is yours._

He tells Tom the whole story. Pouring his heart out onto the page. He knows full well what writing in the diary will do, what interacting with a horcrux will do. He can feel it draining him, he is careful though, he doesn't write constantly though he wishes too. He has to force himself to put down his quill on more than one occasion. He tells Tom what he is doing, greedy as the horcrux is for more power he is careful not to take enough to kill his most loyal, his right hand and his lover. Affection for Ophiuchus (it is Tom's soul after all) combined with the Slytherin understanding that the necromancer is his best chance at returning to full power and not being trapped in a diary for the rest of eternity mean he reluctantly restrains himself. Anyone else he would have drained as soon as he was strong enough to do so, leaving a corpse behind but with Ophiuchus he takes as much as he can without killing it will take longer but he can wait for the right motivation, keeping his right hand is worth it.

Harry wears the ring too knowing it will do the same as the diary. It is easier with the ring, slightly more mature and less impatient though only a few months older. In his previous life he had placed wards around the ring to stop it draining his life force when he wore it, wards he had had to painstakingly remove so the horcrux could drain some of his life force but it had been fiddly to remove the wards without destroying the horcrux behind them he had had to talk to the ring, assure it it meant no harm and the soul needed to stop fighting against the wards looking for a gap so he could remove them. It said much of how much Tom Riddle had trusted his right hand that the soul piece had calmed at his words and stopped fighting.

Harry spent another three months doing nearly nothing due to how much he was drained by the horcruxes, he continued to read the newspapers that had built up to keep informed as well as the more recent ones which kept coming, it seemed the wizarding world were becoming increasingly frantic over Harry's disappearance but he ignored letters from his brother and Corvus even though he promised. Because all that matters is bringing back Tom. He may be rationing horcrux contact but only so it doesn't kill him it is affecting him, so much he can do little more than sleep for 18 hours a day. It is not good for a growing body such as the one he is stuck in, but he finds he doesn't care.

He is physically growing and feeding his life force to two different horcruxes at once, it is exhausting, breaks between the ring and the diary are needed but it gets harder and harder. A combination of the natural magic of the horcrux tempting him, and as a dark wizard he is prone to such temptation, combined with his own eagerness to have his lover back.

Finally, Harry awakes one day to someone stroking his forehead, with only Taffy in the cottage he has his wand pointed at the stranger, an instinct from his time as Tom's second in command, when he recognizes the figure. Tom, diary Tom, he always knew the diary would come into corporeal form first it was easier to consciously feed the life force by writing in the book, the ring was harder to bring to a corporeal form as it was only skin contact, it was harder to pour in his soul and the diary was also a larger soul piece.

"Tom" Harry smiled tiredly.

"You've done so well" the horcrux whispers.

Harry reaches out to touch the horcruxes form "it won't last" Harry said "not permanently. You'll have to go back in the diary eventually, you're strength will ebb away but it should be easier now for you to take form again. You shouldn't need as much energy, and once I have the ring doing the same, he's almost there but not quite, we can move onto the next thing."

"Your going to join us together?"

"75% of the soul between the two of you, it may be enough to stablize you. I told you Tom, horcruxes are a bad idea."

The memory of their only real vicious fight, the one time they had come close to actually breaking up if you could apply normal terms like that to their relationship, Tom and Ophiuchus had never actually officially started dating, they had just started sleeping together without any preliminary discussion because they fit together, that and neither was very good with their feelings. They'd never actually really acknowledged their relationship verbally even to each other. But Tom's plans regarding horcruxes which he had told to Ophiuchus in a way he never would to anyone else had almost destroyed them.

"Well your way wasn't perfect either" Tom retorted furrowing his brow in annoyance.

"Oh my way had problems I don't deny it, but of the two of us I still have my soul in tact, no part of me is an insane wraith. It is so little of your soul Tom. You didn't know me. Lord Voldemort was and is brilliant, a revolutionary, the greatest wizard I ever knew. But by the end you cut away at so much. 75 per cent and once you absorb the remaining soul piece, you'll get the memories and you will be whole enough. Then we can decide what to do with the other horcruxes but you will be functional again, Lord Voldemort will be back."

"If only Dumbledore knew what his golden boy was hiding" Tom smirked.

"I see his hand in the desperate search for Harry Potter I will have to decide what to do with Harry Potter... I'm considering turning up at Hogwarts at 11 purely for an in with the light. I have 6 years to think up a lie about why I dissapeared. I have enough experience of sneaking out of Hogwarts I'm sure I can be at your right hand under an ageing potion when needed and still play the hero of the light. Plus it will be really funny to confuse the old fool like that."

"He didn't have you did he? The main soul piece? Maybe that changed. You always kept me grounded. The one person who would be candid with me, we didn't always agree but I always knew that you would speak your mind without fear and completely with my interest in mind."

"We both failed it seems" Harry said and he reaches for Tom but his hand goes through the horcrux which is growing more transparent like a ghost "your fading" he sighs "too soon for my liking."

It takes another 3 weeks for the ring to materialize as Tom, to avoid confusion Harry has taken to addressing them as "diary" and "ring" neither of them like this but they tolerate it. They don't get on which Harry finds both frustrating and very funny.

"How can you not get on? You're the same person" he cries out in frustration one day. 

"Do you think you'd get on with a perfect copy of yourself just a few months younger?" the ring asked.

Fair point actually. Harry Potter is Ophiuchus Black, he uses both names interchangeably in his mind he is both. And Ophiuchus Black was a selfish selfish man. A privelaged spoilt brat. If an adult version of himself as Ophiuchus Black turned up they probably wouldn't get on.

"Probably not" he admits "but you two are making my life difficult."

"We've always made your life difficult but your the one that decided you were going to be our friend when everyone thought we were a mudblood so you brought it on yourself." Diary added.

"Yes and I learned from it" Harry grumbled.

"No you didn't" Ring dismisses "Face it you always had a slight saving people thing" Tom said "I remember your little strays. You say your proteges were your niece Bella and Corvus' kids but they weren't your first only proteges were they? There was Will Parker and Vedhika Sharma" Ring reminded him. Will Parker had been a half blood hufflepuff who came to Hogwarts when Ophiuchus was a sixth year, fat and often bullied but with a true gift for charms. Vedhika Sharma a muggleborn Ravenclaw a year younger than Will, she had been an Indian orphan adopted by a British couple as a 7 year old they had not taken her magic well. But she had a true gift for potions. Ophiuchus may have been from a noble, pureblood house but he always had an eye for talent. He liked to think he was better at collecting people than his former head of house Horace Slughorn, he was definitely more subtle he didn't want tickets to quidditch matches or firewhiskey for Christmas, he wanted their affection and favours when he needed it. He would have to look them up.

"I always had an eye for talent" Harry said, "I saw it in you didn't I? The first time we met. I could not have known your Slytherin blood or your great power and skill back then but I still knew there was potential. I wouldn't say I made you not like I made others whose skill I noticed. I didn't give you your power or your bloodline but I think I can fairly claim to have accelerated the process and to have eased your way."

"I'd have become a dark lord with or without you" Tom said "I'd have been a powerful descendant of Slytherin regardless of what you did. But your presence in my life, it enabled me to discover who I truly was much earlier, your vouching for me allowed me to move in circles I would have had to work my way in more slowly without you."

Harry noted to look up Will and Vedhika if he could. They had backed him, and therefore Tom. Vedhika had been the only mudblood deatheater, Will had been one too but there were other half bloods only Vedhika had been scandalous. He wondered if they had escaped Azkaban, he hoped so purely because he had heard nothing.

Tom was right, even as a necromancer he had occassionally had a soft spot for one of two broken children. Perhaps that was what drew him to Tom all those years ago. The other boy had put up a convincing facade but he'd been damaged too. Harry understood him even better now he had had a brief taste of life at the Dursley's. In his mind at least, he was an adult who could cope but he could see how badly such neglect would affect an actual child.

Then something else occured to him, "how do you know about that, I met Vedhika in seventh year, you were made sixth year, and I wasn't really interesting in Will's talents until after you were made.I may have filled you both in on what happened since you were made but I didn't give every insignificant little detail I don't think I mentioned Will or Vedhika at all."

"We've had skin to skin contact, you disabled the wards you let me i" Ring said.

"So you could gain strength from me, not read my mind without permission Tom" he scolded.

"Well how about you and I have another type of skin to skin contact?"

"I'm 4" Harry said flatly.

"Only in body, your really 57, older than me really given I have the mind and body of a 16 year old. If anyone is the pervert it is you."

"This body won't react. Too young." Harry said "plus it would be slightly creepy."

"You have ageing potions" Ring pointed out.

"A limited supply" Harry argued "and I don't want to draw too much attention to myself by ordering more."

"You need to learn how to relax" Ring said "let me teach you."

"You leave him alone" Diary snarled possessively.

"We're the same person" Ring pointed out.

"But as you said "would you get on with you?"" Diary retorts.

"Stop it both of you" Harry sighed "and let me drink my tea".

XXXXXXXXXXXX

He wrote a letter that night to Cygnus. A list of ingredients he required, he could have used ageing potion and gone himself but he was still weak from feeding his life force to the horcruxes and he didn't want to use his aged up persona too much as if all went well eventually he would turn into that person. A few outings would likely not attract too much attention but he didn't want to push it when he knew the Black family's resources and connections, even if diminished from Ophiuchus Black's day could achieve his goal a lot quicker.

Harry knew where to get the stuff but especially with what seemed like a crack down on the dark arts since Voldemort's fall, it was likely a lot of the purveyors would not sell to strangers. In times where the dark felt under threat the purveyors of such items tended to restrict sale to those they knew, old families such as the Blacks and the Malfoys, Cygnus, Corvus or Lucius could get him items that as a stranger who could be working with aurors he would find harder to lay his hands on. That had happened before as these things ebbed and flowed with the tide. When the dark was winning it was easier to get such items.

Cygnus sent the ingredients his brother asked for but all but begged him to come and visit him again, all but begged, he was a Black after all and they were far too proud and dignified to beg.

Harry ignores Cygnus' letter for now though he will have to answer sometime, he has been considering what to do for his niece Bella but he does not feel able to act yet. It will be a distraction if she escapes he will have to be careful so she is not noticed, and then the question becomes how to hide her and how long for? He doesn't want attention drawn to Tom's activities. And that means leaving Bella to rot in Azkaban a little longer for a path he was instrumental in setting her down. He doesn't like it, even feels twinges of guilt when he thinks of his niece and her fate. Despite his guilt he'll do anything for Tom. He gives Cygnus a quick reply promising to return soon if all goes according to plan but not addressing any of his questions and gives it to Cygnus' impatient Eagle owl which he notes has also taken the bacon off his plate. Not that he can't order Taffy to make more.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He waits until Samhain, the night the vale is thinnest and what would be Ophiuchus Blacks' 58th birthday to perform the ritual.

In his first life he had always had to share with Samhain, a popular festival for the traditional dark families. He hadn't minded though, he had been rather shy as a child and even as an adult he hadn't liked to be the complete focus, it was perhaps how he and Tom, both incredibly powerful dark wizards had managed to function as both political and romantic partners without killing each other, after all Ophiuchus had had the potential in him to become a dark lord in his own right.

It was not true that a "dark lord" was just a powerful dark wizard, while it was true that all "dark lords" were powerful dark wizards, not all powerful dark wizards had the potential to be dark lords. There was something else needed for that, a certain something extra no one could quite quantify, usually a once in a century thing. To have Ophiuchus who had the potential and Tom who actually ascended born in the same year and for them to have been born so close to Grindelwald who was born 43 years before the duo was really very unusual.

Most of their partnership came from the fact Ophiuchus had long decided he'd rather focus on the magic and leave the politics to Tom. He participated of course and he was capable of political manoeveuring, he'd been born a Black after all he understood the game and the thrill of winning but his more introverted personality was not as suited to other things a dark lord needed, like charm and visibility. Ophiuchus could be charming but it did not come so easily as it did to Tom.

The necromancer had long learned if he and Tom were not to come into conflict, if he was willing to play second fiddle (and he was), he would have to be careful. Ophiuchus had almost never contradicted Tom in public. While they had agreed on a lot they had not agreed on everything and the way Ophiuchus spoke to Tom in private, as an equal and debated him would have got anyone else hit by a round of the cruciatus curse and possibly the killing curse too depending on Tom's mood. In public they presented a unified front and Ophiuchus had knelt and called Tom "my lord" just as the other death eaters had. Though Tom had always allowed Ophiuchus more freedom and trusted him more than anyone else and spoken to him with more affection, their love affair had been secret most of the inner circle had twigged throughout the years and just kept quiet, you didn't talk about such things in dark culture. Especially if they involved a dark lord and a necromancer who was nearly as powerful. To offend them promised pain and fear and death. The last person to get drunk and say something had been killed, that was on a Samhain too. A Crabbe, Ophiuchus thought but it might have been a Goyle, even when he was at the heart of the wealthy dark families with his finger on the pulse it was difficult to distinguish between those two. His mother had been a Crabbe, though luckily for her she seemed to have escaped the worst of the inbreeding in that family, though not completely Violet Crabbe had never been a pretty woman. Ophiuchus was eternally grateful he had taken after the Black's in appearence, not that they weren't inbred they had just escaped the worst of the physical disfigurements due to it, their flaw was the Black madness. The Blacks were generlly beautiful but also mad.

So Samhain was a brilliant day, Ophiuchus' birthday, the day the veil was thinnest and the day that Tom and Ophiuchus had first consumated their relationship in the chamber of secrets. Ophiuchus was used to sharing his birthdate with other important events.

After a lot of fussing perfecting the runes and making sure everything was perfect he finally activated the ritual. And black smoke rose up temporarily blinding the necromancer in a child's body.

When the smoke cleared in the circle was only one Tom, given the time frame within both horcruxes were created, only a few months apart there was no physical difference between the combined ring and diary and the amalgamation before him.

"Tom?" Harry asked he was sure he had got the ritual correct but this was complicated soul magic.

"I'm alright darling" Tom said.

"Do you have both sets of memories?" he asked, because he wanted Tom to have them so when combined him and the wraith that Harry had accidentally damaged in Godric's hollow they would have all the memories up to the current time.

"Yes" Tom said.

"Are you sure I imagine it would be hard to tell because rings memories would be the most recent and the diaries would be the same but stop" Harry sighed "we don't know whether the older ring or the diary which had more of the soul would be dominant."

"Even when my memories are different, when you had both the ring and the diary in corporeal form in this safe house and the diary was in one room doing one thing and the ring was in another room doing something else. I can remember doing both."

Harry exhaled in relief. So he could have several versions of Tom running around and combine them for stability as needed. Good to know.

"Better?" Harry asked "you should be 75 per cent of the soul. It should be enough to be stable. I'll never be able to make you full, not with your horcrux in me but I could add more soul pieces if needed."

"I'm fine" Tom said "clearer, the ring was 25 per cent he was just about holding it together but now if I... he... this is going to be confusing made more horcruxes he must have completely lost it."

"That's my fear. You... he... didn't recognize me Tom" Harry said his voice cracking, "I know you may not have been expecting me to be reborn, giving up hope after eleven years might be understandable but when you saw my eyes... you are intelligent you should have at least thought about it."

"I won't do it to you again darling" Tom said "I promise."

"You gave up too much" Harry said "not everything is worth it"

And now Tom was no longer tied to the ring or the diary Harry could melt into his arms. He has always been shorter and skinnier than Tom though in his first life when they were the same age Tom was only about a head taller, but now Tom is physically 17 and Harry is phycially 4 it is easy for Tom to pick him up and hold him.

"I missed being with you" Tom said.

"Why don't I get one of those ageing potions" Harry offered with a cheeky grin. Referring the advances the ring had previously made.

"Yes please" Tom grins back "But you were right watching you flirt in that body is creepy. I know its you in there but still."

"I was 13 when you first kissed me" Harry pointed out.

"Yes but I was also 13" Tom argued indignantly the offended look on his face making Harry laugh.

He measured out a dose, when Ophiuchus had planned his safe house he had set the ageing potions to 25 as a default, young enough to be attractive but old enough to be unchallenged and not dismissed. This time he thought it would be more fun to be the same age as Tom so he made an educated guess how much would make him 17, (though it wouldn't matter if he got a year or two out as the age of consent in wizarding Britain was 15, and it wouldn't be as if he would be reporting this anyway if he accidentally made himself 14). So about two thirds of the potion would make him somewhere between 15 and 19 years of age, that was close enough in his opinion.

On taking the potion he was pleased to discover he'd got his dosing about right as he looked about 16 or 17.

"Well then, that's have a proper reunion" Harry smiles at his lover.

"You look like you... the old you that is" Tom said, "I wasn't expecting that I was expecting Harry Potter to resemble Ophiuchus Black less."

"Harry's grandmother was Ophiuchus' aunt" Harry explains "I'm hoping that will be sufficent explanation. I'm not looking forward to dealing with Dumbledore later. It might have been OK if not for the eyes. I don't look idential to how I looked before but close enough that anyone who knew Ophiuchus would notice it. It is less obvious as a child, a young child's features are less distinctive, 11 year old Harry might get away with it but 15 or 17 year old Harry might not."

"We'll work it out we always do, even with me torn apart and you dead we still found our way back to each other" Tom said "if we can survive this, we can survive anything. But I don't want to think about Dumbledore right now" and he leans down and kisses Harry. It has been a long time, 15 years for Harry and about 40 years for this amalgamated horcrux Tom since they lay together, far too long.

Despite Tom's split soul and Harry's reincarnation they fit together as well as they ever did. At last something is going right.

Later they will have to come up with some proper plans, how to restore the wraith, how to rescue Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers from Azkaban, and how to exploit the fact Ophiuchus' reincarnation is seen as the saviour of the light.

But that can wait, tomorrow they will be dark wizards and strategists again but tonight, if just for tonight they are just lovers who have been apart too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't write sex scences. I am planning on practicing that at some point as I started fanfic to improve my writing skills, but for now I don't write sex scenes because I'm not great at it. 
> 
> Whenever sex takes place in my works, which isn't a lot, it is heavily implied but not explicit. 
> 
> Also the age of consent in the UK is 16. I made it 15 in the wizarding world because the age of majority is 18 in the UK but 17 in the wizarding world so this feels consistent. Any sex that takes place between Harry and Tom takes place when Harry is in the body of an adult or at least an older teenager (because otherwise it would be creepy).


	7. Sisters and Lockets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry reunites with Walburga, and finds some distrubing information about Ophiuchus' nephews.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. I had two weeks off and grand plans. I wanted to do chapters 7 and 8 of Necromancer's tale plus finish two Hobbit fics I have in the pipeline a Thorin/Bilbo one shot set after the battle of five armies and a three/four chapter fic in which Legolas is a child for which I have the first 2 chapters drafted. I've also got a first draft of chapter 1 of a werewolf!Harry plot bunny that's been floating around my head for months (if I ever write that it will have to be a multi chapter book series rewrite type fic) but I got ill on boxing day (not covid, reoccuring chronic illness) and haven't had the energy.
> 
> I will try and at least draft chapter 8 over the weekend. After that my schedule is dependant on my new work schedule as I am changing departments in my organization on Monday.
> 
> I don't wish to sound like I am complaining I am far luckier than most because I have a job I can do from home and my industry has largely been unscathed by pandemic job losses but the pandemic has extended my work hours and with my lack of energy from my illness I am not getting this out at the pace I hoped. 
> 
> I hope everyone reading this had a happy Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and lets hope 2021 is a better year than 2020 was.

Harry woke up alone. It was late, he knew it was late despite the curtains of his four poster bed still being drawn because the change in perspective indicated the ageing potion had worn off sometime while he was sleeping, the potion as he had measured it tended to last about twelve hours and it had been late at night maybe even past midnight when he and Tom had gone to bed together. So the chances were he had slept past noon. To do so had often been Ophiuchus Black’s habit, unlike Tom who was always an early riser, Ophiuchus who had always had to be dragged out of bed by exasperated parents or house elves as a child and later by Tom, or occasionally Pandora or one of his brothers if he was late for something. Harry had not had the same opportunity to sleep all morning, preoccupied as he had been by finding Tom. 

He reluctantly dressed, he had shrunk some of the robes he had stashed in the safe house, simple and practical but well made black robes suited to all occasions, shrinking clothes would damage them, thinning out the fabric and making them less hard wearing, it was why most wizards went to tailors like Madame Malkin rather than simply using magic to alter their clothes, but as it was necessary simple black robes were less likely to show the damage of such spell work.

Harry found Tom in the kitchen, cooking. He had forgotten Tom could cook. It wasn't something expected of a dark lord but given his early life in the orphanage it made sense he had learned early since they were forced to do chores. Ophiuchus had never known how to cook having been waited on by house elves his entire life and Harry had run off before Petunia had taught him.

“What are you doing that for? Where’s Twinky?” Tom may have been able to cook but it wasn’t as if it was a hobby of his. Once he’d left the orphanage Harry wasn’t aware of him ever having cooked aside from necessity.

"House elves are an underutilized resource, they can pop in and out of anywhere... including the ministry of magic’s department of records.”

“You want records on Harry Potter?”

“I do, but you haven’t seen the paper this afternoon have you?” he asked though he clearly knew the answer, and stressed the word “afternoon” to indicate his displeasure at his lover’s habits. 

"Hey, I’ve been feeding you my life force. I’m entitled to a nap” he complained Tom gave him a plate of bacon and eggs “Thanks" Harry said then he grinned "Perfect little wife aren't you?" Tom hexed him wandlessly. Then looked at him in shock, it had just been a stinging hex mildly annoying like a swat on the arm rather than a curse sent out of anger. And from someone used to dodging Tom's cruciatus it didn't seem like a big deal until he realized... it had been a long time since Tom had done anything like that.

"I forgot I used to be able to do that. I gave up so much even as early on as I am as a horcrux...wait do you know what happened to my wand."

"I tried to get it... wandlessly. When you were gone and I was stuck in my cradle but that oaf Hagrid came in before I could get it. For all I know Dumbledore could have it" Harry sulked "if it wasn't destroyed. I'm sorry Tom I tried."

"I want MY wand back but I can get another" Tom said "it isn't the end of the world. It is not beyond the wit of the greatest dark lord and necromancer to ever live."

This was definitely young Tom, had he always been so arrogant? Harry lets it go, he does not doubt their skill and power but greatest ever? It is not a claim they can legitimately make, not yet, not until they have won and they haven't won yet. Still, the main point is valid if they can't work out a simple lie to acquire Tom a wand they don't deserve their respective titles. Harry can think of at least four different lies off the top of his head.

"You need to read the paper" Tom said changing the subject. Harry reached for the latest edition of the daily prophet folded on the table. 

SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES AZKABAN.

He scans the article, it details Sirius' supposed crimes but not how he escaped which would be useful to know.

"You're brother has been trying to reach you by owl all morning" Tom informs him casually. 

"And you didn't wake me up?"

"I'm not your mother" he retorted "besides, I've been listening to the wireless all morning its rather amusing listening to the ministry panic. Is this Black a cousin or a nephew of yours?"

"Nephew" Harry says "Walburga and Orion’s son, also Harry Potter's godfather."

Tom raised an eyebrow at that "now that is interesting."

"I don't think he was a death eater, of course if he was I wouldn't have known. He was a child when Ophiuchus died. If Sirius joined you it would have been after my death. It was only my oldest niece Bella who was inducted before I died and she was several years older than Sirius. But as infant Harry Potter is saw him in muggle shirts more than once, he had no dark mark. It doesn't mean he wasn't a spy, leaving a spy unmarked is logical, but he turned up in Godric's hollow the night you died. He was distraught, whether for you or Lily and James I cannot say."

"It would be more useful if he's innocent" Tom said, "if he is guilty, it would be easy to get him to obey us but a public fugitive is no great use. If he is innocent though, it means the ministry made a mistake. And it means he could be Harry's guardian. We'd have to be careful what we told him but we could use him."

"Only if he's found innocent, it isn't like the ministry to admit a mistake" Harry said “so what is Twinky supposed to steal, files on the trial? Because if you had woken me up and asked me I would tell you Cygnus told me he never got one. Which of course muddies the waters.” 

“Yes well, your so small and I don’t think the energy I took from you helped” Tom said, “I don’t want you dying on me… again apparently since you already did it once. I was alone for so long. I don’t want you to leave again.”

That makes more sense than Tom’s previous explanation that he didn’t see why it was his responsibility to wake Harry up, Harry distinctly remembered multiple occasion when Tom, at this age or older had pushed him out of bed or woken him up with a stinging hex. Tom had no problem waking him up. He wondered if being in a diary or ring for nearly 50 years had been frightening, he didn’t ask though, Tom would never admit that much weakness even to him. They were interrupted by the return of Twinky who confirmed what Harry had known, that there were no files on the trial of Sirius Black.

“I think, it is time to talk to my sister” Harry finally decided.

He sends a quick note to Cygnus telling him to meet him at Grimmauld place within the hour and takes an ageing potion this time to make him around twenty, Walburga will recognize him he is sure of that rendering the potion unnecessary but he feels a bit more secure presenting as an adult which he is in mind, also Cygnus might have to explain why he is walking around with a random four year old and that could be awkward. 

"Are you coming?" Harry asked Tom over his shoulder as he slipped on his coat.

"I think for now it is better no one else knows of my existence, there is another me out there and as he is just a tiny sliver of soul it is not an insurmountable loss if he falls, inconvenient of course as he has the most recent memories and I want them but I will not trust anyone else with the knowledge of my horcruxes and while there are other feasible explanations I would rather they not dig into it too far."

"As you wish" Harry said, he is disappointed he wanted his lover back as it had been before but he also understands the wisdom of Tom's position.

"I'll see you later then" Tom said.

"Is my little housewife going to have dinner on the table when I get back?" Harry asked cheekily, dodging a stinging hex that came so close he felt it skim over the top of his hair. He made a quick exit after that. He was just glad Tom didn't have a wand. If he did it would be a cruciatus Harry was dodging.

XXXXXXXXX

An hour later Harry and Cygnus had been invited inside Grimmuald by Walburga who had taken one look at Harry standing next to their brother and simply said "you're back then, come in."

She herded Harry and Cygnus into the main reception room of Grimmauld place. Harry felt a sudden warmth as he walked past the staircase a familiarity he had never felt in Grimmauld place previously, he brushed it off, he had things to do.

Old Arcturus Black sat in a corner. He was a very old man now though he seemed sharper than Ophiuchus' father.

"You're back then?" he said echoing his daughter in laws words.

"I am" Harry confirmed.

"Took you long enough."

"Thanks cousin Arcturus I feel really appreciated" Harry said rolling his eyes.

"I suppose you are here because of that blood traitor" Walburga scowled before screaming at Kreacher to bring tea.

"I want to find Sirius" Harry said, "so I need to know Walburga, was he a blood traitor or was he a death eater."

"I don't know" she said "if he was a death eater he was a damn good spy he walked out when he was 15 and said he wanted nothing to do with the family, sided with that old fool Dumbledore, and the Potters."

"Which is something a blood traitor would do but also something a gifted spy would do" Harry said "which doesn't help."

"It never occurred to me, then the dark lord fell and Sirius was arrested.”

“And had no trial? Were you aware of that? Why wouldn’t you do something? I get why Cygnus couldn’t do anything but he’s your son.”

“We did nothing because he was either a blood traitor who got what he deserved for mixing with the wrong people or he failed in his mission."

Good old Walburga, cold as ever. Even Cygnus, who admitted Bella was wrong was desperate to get her out of Azkaban. She had less warmth to her than Ophiuchus who would, if asked, freely admit he would murder his entire family if the dark lord asked it of him.

He was going to get nothing useful from his sister.

"Tell me if you hear anything."

"Ophiuchus are you up to something?" she asked. 

"Always" he smiled, "I'm looking for the dark lord."

Cygnus gave Ophiuchus an annoyed look "yes yes, I'm also working at getting Bella and the Lestrange boys out of Azkaban" he added quickly before continuing "Sirius was too young when I died for me to have a true understanding of his character. I had hoped if he was one of us he would be useful and able to give me more updated information."

"Well he escaped from Azkaban" Walburga said "so he can't have been completely useless".

Aside from the potential usefulness of Sirius, to Ophiuchus is he was dark and to Harry if he was light, Harry also wanted to know how his nephew had got out, because the necromancer was definitely facing Azkaban himself if he was ever caught, and almost certainly the kiss. On a purely selfish front that information would be useful to him. It might also have helped him get Bella out but that was a secondary concern to his own self preservation. He was a Slytherin after all.

"So this is what you look like now?"

"This is one of my forms" he said elbowing Cygnus hard in the ribs to stop his brother mentioning Harry Potter, he trusts her less than Cygnus "I have others but this is to be my form when interacting with the dark."

"Are you going to be telling people you are back? Can we expect news stories of massacres and inferi armies again?”

"No" Harry said "not yet anyway. I'm going to have to think up an alias for this version of me at some point. The problem is the eyes. Its not possible to hide necromancer's eyes. So I need to explain why I have them and why I look like a young Ophiuchus Black. I'm thinking about claiming to be a distant member of the family."

"You could be your son" Walburga suggested, "Ophiuchus's bastard son. It is well known you and Pandora weren't close but someone must have been to your tastes."

Old Arcturus Black's eyes twinkled in amusement, Harry wondered if his older cousin knew, he may have at least suspected. He also wondered if twinkling eyes was a specific skill or if it was something all wizards could do if they got old enough. Cygnus snickered he knew exactly what Harry’s tastes were. 

Harry shot a wandless stinging hex at his younger brother. He was fairly sure Walburga who was more intelligent than Cygnus in many ways but also very biased, hadn't even considered the fact his relationship with Tom was improper and he didn't feel like having that conversation now. Besides the idea itself wasn't bad, while some people must have suspected Ophiuchus and Tom's true relationship they wouldn't be brave enough to say it. And there was no reason it couldn't be true that Ophiuchus Black was both sleeping with the dark lord and also had an illegitimate son.

"I need a moon name for my alias then" it was tradition for Blacks to be named for a star, but acknowledged bastards were named for moons.

It was a good idea, Walburga was Ophiuchus' least favourite sibling but she was also the only one with brains that came even close to his, Alphard and Cygnus... he'd loved them but neither was overly gifted in the brains department, they weren't idiots as such, just average, which for a man used to Tom’s brilliance was not enough. Walburga was not average she was vicious, and biased which blinded her to certain facts like her brother’s relationship with the dark lord, but made her an asset in others..

"Do you want to name me?" he asked.

She seemed to think for a moment "Oberon Black" she decided.

Oberon, like the moon of Uranus, and the King of the fairies in medieval and renaissance literature, most notably the Shakespearean play a midsummer night's dream. Shakespeare had been a mudblood, but funnily enough the pureblood ignored that due to his immense fame in both magical and wizarding circles.

"I'm fine with that name" Ophiuchus says "so Oberon Black, bastard son of Ophiuchus Black, I think I will say my mother was French and I was raised in Brittany, the Black's have property there so it isn't unfeasible Ophiuchus could have had an affair with a woman from there. I could have gone to Beauxbatons and only recently come to Britain."

Like all Black's he was fluent in French. The Blacks were a very old family so old they considered the Malfoys and Lestranges (who had come with the Norman conquest nearly 1000 years ago) a "new" family. But that didn't mean when the whole upper class of Britain changed with the invasion the Black's didn't rush to integrate with the Normans, they had owned property in France ever since.

"Can you do a French accent?" Cygnus asked.

"I won't bother, Oberon Black will be bilingual" he may have been a fluent French speaker but he had no idea how to do a realistic French accent when speaking English and he wasn't going to try lest he embarrass himself. It is a good plan, “I need a cover. I'm physically 25... which would mean Oberon Black was born in 1959 and Ophiuchus Black died 1969. If Oberon's father died when he was 10 the maths works. Plus given Ophiuchus' reputation, being able to feasibly claim I barely knew my father could be useful if I want to present myself as more innocent to the light, the dark would never believe it. But I plan to present myself as a death eater to them, it is logical with his necromancer gone the dark lord would employ a son with the same talents, who learned everything from his father. After all I still have all the skill and knowledge I had previously."

They hammer out the minutiae of Oberon Black’s life over tea, so no further information about Sirius but it isn’t a completely wasted meeting.

He rose to leave as he drained his tea cup, Walburga was his sister after all he didn't trust her as he trusted Cygnus, her prejudices blinded her to reality, but she would be loyal to the family and she knew her brother well enough to know how powerful he was, the Blacks usually stayed loyal to the most powerful family member as long as they followed their ideals, Ophiuchus had deviated slightly he had had werewolf friends for example but given how his first seemingly blood traitor like act had been to befriend a future dark lord he got the benefit of the doubt in a way few of his relatives did.

Then he felt it again the same familiar pull he felt when he walked into Grimmauld place, it hadn't been there last time he visited, Yule 1968. 

He turned and went up stairs, is this was what it felt like… there was a horcrux here "Ophiuchus?" Walburga asked.

"There is a dark object in this house, and not of the kind that are usually around" he said "tell me Walburga were you or Orion ever given something? Asked to take care of it?"

"No" she frowned.

"Is this like whatever was going on with Lucius' book?" Cygnus asked.

"Yes" Ophiuchus said.

"I'm not sure what exactly he's up to but he's been searching for specific objects" Cygnus tells Walburga.

"Tracking spell" he thought up a feasible lie easily, they will even assume he is being deliberately vague they are accustomed to his being involved in plots and research that he doesn't care to fully explain "objects of personal significance to the dark lord, tracking spells generally don't work on him due to wards he put up but I think with enough objects of personal significance I think I can break them. We were close for a long time I have a better chance of overriding his wards than anyone else."

Harry follows the feeling as it gets stronger and stronger before opening a cupboard. He rummages around the blankets and finds...Salazar Slytherin's locket.

"That is mine" Kreacher, the house elf snarled appearing out of no where.

"Where did you get this?" the necromancer demands, then turns to Walburga and Cygnus who followed him up the stairs and stood in the hall just outside the doorway looking confused.

"Do you recognize this?" he asks Walburga holding up the chain so she could see the emerald S on the front of the locket.

"No" his sister denies shaking her head, "what is it?"

Harry smiled, he had the locket. He could feel its warmth, reaching out to him as a fellow horcrux, and as the owner of the soul’s companion. He only needed the cup and the diadem now, assuming there were not more horcruxes, which given how mutilated the version of Tom that had tried to kill him the cradle was, was not guaranteed.

"Tell him to answer my questions" Ophiuchus orders his sister, this was not Ophiuchus her brother anymore, this was the dark lord’s right hand and Walburga clearly knew it and did as she was told.

The house elf cringes "m..master Regulus he told me to take care of it."

Regulus had been a death eater, what had he known? As a Black he would have been accorded a certain amount of respect due to being Ophiuchus' nephew. If Regulus had known had he told the elf?

"Legilimens" Harry said not wanting him to talk any further.

He sees what he wants and then obliviates the house elf with a non-verbal spell. So Regulus had turned traitor, it hadn't even occured to him Regulus would. Sirius was a wild card but he had been fairly certain of the loyalty of his youngest nephew.

But Regulus had known it was a horcrux as had Kreacher. Well the house elf had lost the information.

He puts the locket in his pocket feeling the warmth of one of Tom's horcruxes crackle against his skin through the thin robes. This one is darker, older. Tom at 25 years old. The fifth Horcrux, the smallest one Harry is aware of. The first was the diary, then the ring, then the diadem (Harry knows its location though its retrieval will have to wait for now), then the cup (he suspects this is the one in the Lestrange vault), then the locket. He is concerned Tom made one more, six horcruxes to split his soul in seven, while Harry himself is technically a horcrux he hopes that accounts for the sixth and there are no more hidden around but by this point he has 75% of the soul in Tom. The locket will be just over 3%, 3.125% in total it will not give Tom a big power boost but it will update his memories by eight years. Harry wants his Tom back the shared experiences are a big part of that, while 17 year old Tom cares for him and knows him it isn't quite the same.

"Let me know if you hear from Sirius" Harry orders Walburga before he resumes ignoring her, he is already thinking about his next move and she is of little use to him now.

"You're about to disappear for months again aren't you?" Cygnus asked.

"Not months" it is a weaker horcrux just 3 per cent it will take longer to "charge" to full power but it is also weak enough he can probably wear it without too much ill effect. Harry has no idea how long it will take, the ring took longer than the diary but not twice as long so clearly it isn't always proportional, but the ring at 25% was still much more of Tom's soul than the locket is. Harry won't wait around for locket to materialize he will wear it of course, but he will also get on with his next plans. He had forced himself with the diary and the ring to get the corporeal because he missed Tom so much, he had a version of Tom now at least, he wouldn’t rush this time. He was just annoyed at himself it took him being in the house so long to notice. He should have noticed sooner, Tom was his home, he would always seek him out but he had almost missed him.

A thought struck Harry, home. If Sirius Black was an innocent, well he had spent so much time with the Potters. More than his own blood family (or close blood family anyway Sirius and James had been distantly related after all), and Sirius didn’t have the advantage Harry had of knowing a way to bring Tom back.

Sirius Black was sentimental and emotional rather than strategic, Harry had gleaned that much from his humiliating time as an infant. If Sirius Black was innocent he would have visited Godric’s Hollow. If Harry was lucky he would still be there now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Walburga is hard to write, we know from book 5 she was horribly predjudiced but nothing else. Most people have some redeeming qualaties. Ophiuchus considers himself superior due to being a pureblood and a Black but he isn't stupid enough to dismiss the usefulness or danger of other people because they aren't as "pure" as he is. I imagine he would consider Walburga useful due to her loyalty but too blinded by predjudice to be truly helpful. After all someone who considers others to be so inferior they couldn't possibly do her any damage could easily be lead into a trap.
> 
> Next chapter we meet Sirius.


	8. Godfathers and Nephews

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry visits Godric's Hollow. Harry and Tom kidnap to Sirius Black, and lie either directly or by ommisson A LOT. Especially Tom who is a lying liar who lies and also debuts his own cover identity Makarios Caiaphus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I managed to get another chapter out before I go back to work. I was inspired. 
> 
> Experimenting with Sirius POV for part of this chapter. 
> 
> I want to thank all my reviews and everyone who left kudos. It is always nice to know I'm not writing in a vacuum and at least some people are enjoying my ideas.

Cold wind hit Harry’s face when he apparated to Godric’s hollow. It was getting dark but he could still just about see without resorting to using a Lumos charm.

He had apparated straight into the only place he could visualize the ruins of the cottage. The Potter’s had been in hiding and not taken Harry further than the garden. It hadn’t been rebuilt at all, and Harry’s old nursery, the room he materialized in, his cradle was still there, as was the hole in the roof. In hindsight this was a useful thing, if the cottage had been rebuilt and sold it could have been very awkward had he popped up randomly in someone’s bedroom. On the off chance he searches for Tom’s wand but he didn’t really expect it to be there. It seemed it was long gone. Maybe Dumbledore had returned and taken it, he hoped it hadn’t been snapped. He kind of hoped Dumbledore had it because he was less likely than the ministry to have snapped it. 

Giving up on the wand Harry began to search the property his wand in hand, he doesn’t know how sane Sirius will be after three years in Azkaban. 

Harry was surprised he felt genuine sorrow seeing the ruin and the remnants of the Potter’s lives, had Ophiuchus never died they would not have been on the same side of the war and had they lived Harry would have eventually broken their hearts it would have hurt to do it but he would have, because he would always put Tom first. None of this meant he couldn’t feel sorrow for them. James and Lily Potter had been brave and so so horrifically young.

Still, Sirius Black was not hiding out at the house, nothing had been touched since that night, apart from Tom’s wand and Harry himself. Since he was already here he may as well search the rest of the village, the Potter’s graves was the other place Sirius could be. Most muggle villages had churches it was likely, though not guaranteed they were buried there. He wondered who arranged their funerals. If indeed they got one, if they had Petunia definitely hadn’t taken him.

As he left the cottage he noticed a sign commemorating that night, and covered in graffiti in support of the family. 

All of which is variations of “They gave their lives so good could triumph”, it’s wrong the Potter’s gave their lives for nothing. Their son was not who they had thought he was and he would undo all they fought for. He doesn’t like to think about that too much, they’d been wonderful parents even upon seeing his eyes and knowing at least some of his fate. He had, in a way, loved them. He closed the gate behind him and headed for the church.

Godric’s hollow was a village in Gloucestershire, mostly muggle now, though a couple of magical families still lived there. It looked on the outside like any other village you might find anywhere in rural England. Cottages lined the streets which centered on the village square which contained a pub, post office, a small butchers shop and a muggle corner shop which sold basics like milk. There was a medieval church with a steeple added many centuries later by the Victorians, a small village shop attached to a post office and houses lining the “main road” with winding tracks leading off to farms. 

Embarrassingly he got lost a few times, he had not been taken into the village and though the church steeple was visible way above the cottages he wasn’t sure which lane to take to actually get to graveyard. He finds his way after wandering aimlessly for a little bit. 

Harry doesn’t know where Lily and James are buried or if they are even here, but he doesn’t need to look for long, not when there is a large black stray dog lying, possibly asleep on two graves covered in flowers. Harry had ridden Padfoot enough as an infant to recognize this form. 

He is hesitant to approach at first, he is still in the form that will become known as Oberon Black. Would an approach from four year old Harry be better? But how would he explain where Harry has been? If Sirius has followed any news he will certainly have followed Harry Potter, whether he be innocent of guilty. He doesn’t want to let him get away either. Sirius will not have a wand, and he is asleep. 

Harry draws his wand and stuns the possibly sleeping animagus. He and Tom will figure out the rest later.

XXXXXXXX

Sirius POV

Sirius Black had gone to sleep on a cold, windy, early November night on the graves of his best friends, he awoke alone in a large fairly luxurious room on a large, soft bed. This was concerning, if the ministry had him he certainly wouldn’t be in such luxury, he’d be thrown back in Azkaban at best, possibly interrogated first, it wouldn’t be unexpected for him to face the kiss for this. So this situation implied ulterior motives.

So whoever had him was not ministry, an unknown. His own side had abandoned him, not even bothered to get him a trial, so whoever this was was almost certainly someone very very dark. And he has no wand. Well he’d rather die than go back to Azkaban, doesn’t mean he’s going down without a fight.

The door opened and a young man entered carrying a tray loaded with food and a pitcher of water. He was maybe 20, with bright blue eyes and slightly wavy light brown hair.

“Peace” a young man’s voice said, “I mean you no harm Mr Black.”

“Who are you?”

“Makarios Caiaphus” the young man answers, the name means nothing to Sirius.

“Who are you?”

“A friend.”

“I don’t have any friends left" Sirius said with a bitter, humourless laugh.

“A friend of a friend then” Caiaphus says cryptically as he places a tray down on the desk “eat and drink, there is a bathroom through there have a bath and sleep and when you are ready to talk ring the bell. I will come to you then.”

“I want answers now.”

“I’m sure you do. But you stink, you are exhausted and starving I want you to focus on what I have to say. A bath, sleep and food and water will not fix what you have been through but it will help you focus better. Oh, and you will find clean robes in the wardrobe.

And Makarios Caiaphus was gone. 

Well Sirius had little choice, and he was starving, steak, potatoes and greens all went down his throat quickly, he drank a whole pitcher of water which had been spelled to refill when empty. Then he had the first hot bath in three years and clean clothes, it is such a small thing that makes Sirius weep, he had been so cold for so long. He did intend to call Caiaphus at this point but he was falling asleep.

He awoke to eerie silence, there were no clocks and he had no idea what time it was, there were no windows either. Caiaphus may have been civil but he was still a prisoner. He rung the bell.

It feels like an age but is probably less than three minutes when Caiaphus returns. 

“Ah Mr Black I see you are looking better. Can I get you anything tea? Coffee?”

He should ignore him but it has been so long since he had anything warm to drink.

“Tea” Sirius croaks, Caiaphus reiterates his request to a house elf and two minutes later the house elf has put a tea tray in front of him complete with biscuits.

“Who are you? You must want something” he says when he has drunk most of the tea. Caiaphus waited patiently.

“Are you loyal to the dark lord Voldemort?” Caiaphus asked ignoring Sirius’ questions.

Sirius intends to demand Caiaphus answers his question but instead unbidden he answers “no”, veritaserum, no wonder Caiaphus tempted him with tea.

“Did you murder Peter Pettigrew?” the young man continues mercilessly. 

“No”

“Tell me everything that happened the day you were arrested” he commands.

And Sirius spills everything, how Peter was the Potter’s secret keeper how everyone believed it was him, how Peter betrayed them to Voldemort. How angry he was. How Peter set him up. 

“So the purpose of your escape was to find Pettigrew and kill him?” Caiaphus asks for confirmation, he has given nothing away it is unclear whether he is pleased or not by Sirius’ story. He is unreadable, whether he is relieved Sirius is not a death eater, or plotting his murder Sirius cannot tell. 

“Yes, but not my main goal. Harry… my godson. He’s missing, maybe even dead. I have to find him, save him if I can, avenge him if I can’t.”

“I would apologize for drugging you” Caiaphus says calmly “but I needed to know. I did think it strange you never had a trial, there was always a possibility you were innocent. Now I know I will explain everything. First things first, Harry is alive. He is fine. He is actually in this very house.”

“Can I see him?”

“Not yet. Not until we have spoken. I do intend to introduce you. But not now, no matter the outcome it is 1am and he is four years old and needs his sleep. What I can do is assure you Harry will never come to any harm at my hands and should we have a productive conversation I will introduce you to him a few hours after he wakes up, I will need to talk to him first.”

“Talk then” Sirius said. He doesn’t know what is going on but he won’t jeopardize his chance to see Harry.

“I’m going to tell you a story about two powerful wizards born many years ago”

“What does this have to do with Harry?”

“You’ll see if you let me finish. May I continue without further interruption?” Caiaphus asked without really asking reminding Sirius of every pureblood politician he had hated but he wanted him to get to the point.

“Fine” Sirius sighed he wanted Caiaphus to finish whatever he was on about so he could speak to Harry.

“If I am to continue I would ask you to take an oath of secrecy.”

“If you swear it is not about anything that will hurt Harry.”

“It will only hurt Harry if it gets out, as I have said he is in no danger from me.”

“Then I swear” he feels something snap and Sirius has a horrible feeling he should have asked the penalty for his vow before agreeing so easily. But Caiaphus smiles like the cat that got the cream, which makes him feel worse and then continues speaking.

“These two wizards were friends from the age of 11, they met on the Hogwarts express and were close. More than close they were lovers, not when they were 11 obviously but when they got older. They both died. The thing is one of them was a necromancer, and he did a ritual, it wasn’t immortality as such but the closest to it. Every soul that ever lived has been reborn multiple times, it’s just none can remember it. So the necromancer, he performed a ritual so he and his lover would.”

“Harry has necromancer’s eyes” Sirius said.

“Yes” Caiaphus finished.

“And you were the other wizard?”

“I was. I had no chance of finding him, he still lived when I died. So when he was reborn and able to move, he left the muggles Dumbledore placed him with and found me. The boy who lived stuff is less than ideal and admittedly adds another complicated layer to our situation.”

“So he knows?”

“He remembers, he is in the body of a child but he never was one.”

“He was a quiet child” Sirius realizes.

“Yes because he had no idea how to act as one. Harry was never a child in mind. He remembers you though. He cared for you, and the Potter’s and Remus. He loved you. And was concerned when he was able to get away from the Dursleys and discover what happened to you. He didn’t want to believe it… we were never entirely light before hand but we would never back Voldemort’s methods. When we heard you escaped well, he found you in Godric’s hollow and knocked you out. We decided we would talk to you before deciding what we would do.”

“And if I had been a death eater?”

“Harry loved Lily and James, he may not have been a true child in mind but he loved them, his first set of parents were not abusive as such but cold with no love to give, but Lily and James, from what he told me were loving and caring parents he was devastated to lose. If you had betrayed them, well it wouldn’t be the first time either of us cast the killing curse.”

“Did you kill Harry’s aunt?” Sirius asked.

“No” it seems she died in a car crash, I don’t know if it was a true car crash of death eater related but it wasn’t me. Harry ran from her because she was abusive and well, he was only physically three at the time but he was old enough in mind to escape. We reunited a few months after that. I could pose as his guardian but given Harry’s fame it complicates things, fabricating a distant cousin relationship, which is what we would have done otherwise, would have faced a lot of scrutiny so we just hid until we could think of what to do next. We are going to have to come up with some lie when he turned eleven to explain where he has been. So the question for you Mr Black, is what do you want to do now? You know the truth. Harry isn’t a four year old child, he’s older than you. But is still the Harry you cared for. Knowing what you now know, do you still want to meet him?”

“Yes” Sirius said, “of course I do. I don’t understand a lot of this but I need to talk to him.”

“Excellent” Caiaphus says rising “I’ll see you in the morning. The proper morning not the ridiculous time it is now.”

And just like that Sirius was left alone in the dark.

XXXX

Harry was bored, he was sitting in an armchair in Sirius’ makeshift prison waiting for his nephew to wake up. He and Tom had spent a long time coming up with a plan before reversing the stunner. In the end they decided they risked slipping up too much and Harry had no idea how to truly act the child so they had to tell some form of the truth, that Harry was a reincarnation of a dark wizard and they would represent Tom as Makarios Caiaphus, another reincarnation, though how dark they truly were and what their true names were could wait. They had decided Tom would speak first, he was a much better liar than Harry and Sirius had no emotional attachment to Makarios Caiaphus which would make him more likely to focus on the actual words being said.

Still Harry is bored and shoots a mild stinging hex and his godfather slash nephew to wake him up.

Sirius Black sits bolt upright he opens his eyes wide and stares at Harry in horror for a few seconds before speaking. The stinging hex forgotten if he even registered it in his sleep. 

“Harry?” he asked hesitantly.

“I did want to be here last night but I fell asleep, the body of a child you see. And Makarios took it upon himself to speak to you without me. But I understand he explained the situation?” Harry partially lies he had been awake and waiting for Tom’s return, under aging potion. 

“Yes” Sirius said “so you aren’t really a child?”

“Well this body is me, I was born as Harry Potter. But I was someone else before hand.”

“Anyone I heard of?”

“I was a Black, not exactly perfect but I was too smart to be burned off but I probably should have been.” None of that is a lie, Ophiuchus had been perfect in many ways and a devoted supporter of Voldemort but the man more than the ideals. He was never for complete genocide, not of muggleborns anyway, though he had figured if they killed all muggles they’d die out automatically he thought those already around should be allowed to stay. He was also letting Sirius think he came from centuries ago, by saying he was a Black and a necromancer it was remarkable Sirius had yet to ask the obvious question. If he was his uncle. But then again Sirius thought Ophiuchus had been evil, and straight, he had been married to a beautiful woman after all. 

“For being gay?” Sirius blurted out with little tact. Then he seemed to realize what he said.

“I mean… I don’t care. But they would.”

“Yes I saw how you looked at Moony” Harry said with a knowing smile, “and yes, among other things, Makarios was a muggle raised half blood, which didn’t help. I let them believe I agreed with them on everything and took the money, they all thought I was perfect of course. I felt kinship for you, I wished I could speak back then, when my mum and dad… when Lily and James were alive. They were more loving than my first parents, you have experience of that personally don’t you?”

“Yes” Sirius said choking up. 

“I’m not a child for you to raise. But if I can get you exonerated… will you play my guardian? It would be easier than if Makarios did it. We can still avenge my parents but I need your help Sirius.”

“You have it. Anything Harry.”

“Then we will find Pettigrew and kill him, but first tell me how you got out of Azkaban?”

“You know I’m an animagus?”

“Yes I do.”

“Well I was never registered, and I just starved myself until I could slip through the bars.”

“Why now?”

“Because I saw a newspaper? A visiting official left it behind. It said you were missing. Had been for months I was scared the death eaters had you.”

“Don’t worry about it” Harry said, “I have my wand back. My old wand, I’ll have to get a new one from Hogwarts, I fought in wars in my first life. I can handle death eaters. It could be awkward in public if anyone asks why four year old Harry Potter knows dark hexes but I wouldn’t die I’d just have to think up a very good lie. Or get my lover to do it he’s better at it than me.”

“I’m sorry the lover thing is creepy” Sirius said.

“I’m not really four you need to remember that. Though I agree it is a little creepy. I gave him a kiss once and he made me swear not to do it again unless I’d taken an aging potion. I think I creeped him out, I’m older though if we count our first life, not by much we were in the same year at Hogwarts but I’m a few months older. I take an aging potion if we want to have sex.”

“Too much information Harry” Sirius said pulling a face.

“Sorry” Harry said not that he was Sirius was growing pale again and quieter, “you have been through a lot Padfoot” he said “and by rights should be in St Mungo’s. We can’t arrange that though we are working on procuring or manufacturing potions to help you, for now you need to eat and rest.”

“Not tired” he said like a child who didn’t want to stop playing and go to bed. 

“Yes, you are” Harry said firmly “I will come and see you later I promise.”

“Harry?”

“Yes”

“Just don’t lock the door this time, please.”

“I promise I won’t” Harry says, he may not agree with Sirius he may be exploiting him but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t pity his nephew, broken by so many things not his fault. 

He leaves the door unlocked but casts a silent detection ward when he is out of site so he will know if Sirius leaves his rooms. 

XXXXXX

“How did it go?” Tom asks. Harry removed the transfiguration he had performed on his lover, Makarios Caiaphus looked similar to a twenty year old Tom Riddle in facial structure but his colouring, and his nose were slightly different, enough that no one, except possibly Dumbledore if they were very unlucky would notice. Tom would need a wand soon, if not his than at least a subsitute, they had been lucky he had the power to do a wandless secrecy spell. But he was still getting stronger every day, recovering as the diary and ring knitted closer together all the time to create a more complete soul. But for now he had to be reliant on Harry for his disguises and though they were close they were not joined at the hip. 

“He seems to have bought it. Unfortunately, though I was able to find out how he got out of Azkaban it was related to his animagus form and is therefore useless as far as getting my niece out goes" Harry groaned. 

“Leave her for now” Tom says "she doesn't matter."

“I promised my brother, it might not be my top priority but I do need to get her out, both because I believe she has one of your horcruxes and because I need to keep Cygnus’ loyalty.”

“Speaking of loyalty how loyal do you think Sirius Black will be once he realizes who you are? You have already told him you were a Black and a necromancer both. Like his uncle and he isn't stupid, well not completely." Tom evidently didn't think much over how easy he had been to trap in a secrecy oath.

“In Sirius' mind Ophiuchus was a complete monster and there was no more complexity to him than that, one of Sirius' flaws is he sees the world in black and white and the boy in front of him, who has told him he is a necromancer and was a Black, he also knows to be capable of great devotion and love. Something he does not believe Ophiuchus was ever capable of feeling. Ophiuchus did monstrous things, and I don’t regret them, but no one is completely one thing, good or evil, dark or light. Sirius doesn’t see that, that is why trapping him was so easily, but even if he does realize. That secrecy spell you cast, will prevent him from saying anything related to my identity without suffocating as he tries to speak.”

“He really should have asked the terms of the spell before agreeing” Tom agrees a smile playing on his lips. 

“Now we just need to find the rat” Harry groaned “and we have no idea where to start.”

“I do” Tom said looking very pleased with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on Tom's name. Caiaphus was the high priest who arranged Jesus' execution. Makarios is a Greek name I like the sound of. Why Greek? You'll find out later. 
> 
> Next time: Peter Pettigrew


	9. Rats, aurors and old protege's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Tom catch Pettigrew, Makarios Caiaphus is introduced to the aurors and Harry meets an old but unexpected ally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with chapter 9. I have chapters 10 and 11 plotted. This fic is not fully plotted from beginning to end I have some ideas of what I want to happen but not really when it should happen and some of what I'm writing just happens as I am writing and I am as surprised as the readers. Work and health permitting would like chapters 10 and 11 out over the next 2 weeks.
> 
> I also want to say thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story so far, especially everyone who took the trouble to leave Kudos or comment.

Sirius isn’t in as bad a condition as Harry would have expected, he is thin, malnourished and unstable, had he not been so unstable… clinging onto any connection he would not have been so easy to misdirect, he would have realized who Harry really was. It had only been 3 years but Harry remembered what adult Sirius, prior the dark lord’s fall had been like, boisterous, smiling, happy despite the war. Since then betrayal by his friends, neglect from his family and the fact none of his precious light side had bothered to investigate the accusations against him, thinking the worst of him without question, had left Ophiuchus’ eldest nephew severely traumatized. To the point he wasn’t coming to obvious conclusions, he would eventually work it out Harry was sure, but it would be too late by then. He would probably be in deep enough to manipulate, if not, in the worst case scenario Harry could take him even in a fair fight. He didn’t want to kill his last nephew but he would if given no other choice. The imperius was also an option though one Harry held off for now. Sirius was still a fugitive, if he ran where would he go? 

Just to be safe the wards would not let the escaped convict in certain areas of the cottage, mainly Harry and Tom’s shared bedroom and the study, he was allowed in the library which was full of dark books but not as dark as the ones in the study, where the true Black magic books were kept out of his sight. They were simple muggle repelling distraction wards, but keyed to his blood instead which they took while he was still unconscious, a more together wizard would notice, and a competent legilimens would be able to resist but Sirius was not together and had never had that talent in the first place.

XXXXXXX

They had let Sirius out of the cottage once, in dog form, when Tom and Harry had finally got around to getting Tom a spare wand. Harry had ramped up his aging potion so he was in his forties, and looked like Ophiuchus Black shortly before his death, he had quickly realized that wouldn’t do, even Sirius would pick up on that, and there would be others around who remembered him from his past life, anyone over about 32. He did some quick transfiguration to change his features. Now he looked like someone who could pass for a transfigured Tom’s father, Tom had also transfigured his features and the pair were both blond, Tom had blue eyes and Harry was wearing sunglasses implying a fault with his eyes. Too many people with necromancer’s eyes hanging around would attract attention it was a very rare gift, rarer than being a parselmouth with the disadvantage you could hide being a parselmouth in a way you couldn’t hide necromancer’s eyes. With Harry Potter and Oberon Black he would already be pushing it, though both would have a genetic link (though minor in Harry’s case) to Ophiuchus. 

Eyes were tricky, eyesight could not be fixed by magical means, hence so many wizards wearing glasses. So poor eyesight would be a realistic excuse, he had written to Cygnus and asked for one of their father’s canes. Cygnus had sent one immediately but also sent loads of questions about where his brother was and what he was doing. Which Harry had ignored. He would have to visit Cygnus soon and explain at least some of what he was going to do, he at least owed his sister and surviving brother a warning before the stuff about Sirius was publicized. He had given instructions to Lucius who he would need shortly but the explanatory letters to Walburga and Cygnus, were written though unsent. 

Olivander had known who they were, Harry knew it almost immediately, he had frowned at Tom but wisely stayed silent. Ollivander wasn’t one of Dumbledore’s he was an odd man almost certainly possessing some form of seers gifts but fortunately obsessed only with wands. He had let Tom take another yew wand, like his original one but dragon heart rather than phoenix this time. It wasn’t as good as his original but it worked well enough, unless he had to duel Dumbledore, or multiple aurors to the standard of Mad eye Moody at once the different in effectiveness wouldn’t handicap him.

Dumbledore would recognize Tom’s original wand. Their plan to present Tom as Makarios Caiaphus, who was to come into play shortly, after all they needed someone independent to have found Pettigrew, a foreign born wizard would have no stake in Sirius Black’s innocence or guilt. Makarios would be Tom’s Oberon Black. An alter ego to be presented as dark to some people, light to others. Makarios Caiaphus would be a moderate curbing the excesses of both light and dark in public, in private certain inner circle death eaters would be lead to believe he was one of them. Oberon Black with his necromancer’s eyes could never gain the easy trust Makarios could. 

Harry had wanted to ask for a wand too, Harry Potter was too young technically and Ophiuchus Black’s wand felt like home but again his wand would be recognized by Dumbledore. It wouldn’t matter for Oberon Black to have his father’s wand, wands being handed down in families was normal, and Oberon had inherited Ophiuchus’ necromancer’s talents so to inherit his wand would not be questioned. It would help with the dark but handicap him with the light. But Harry would need a wand, not for another 6 years but he was in Ollivander’s now and Harry’s wand would not be recognizable at this stage as Harry’s wand. So if he needed to present himself as yet another alter ego, having a wand not Ophiuchus Black’s would help. He refrained in the end, Harry Potter was famous, for all he knew someone important from Hogwarts like Dumbledore or McGonagall may decide to take him to get his wand. Already having one would be hard to explain away. 

After much argument Tom and Harry had come to the conclusion that the best way to free Sirius and present him as Harry’s guardian was to allow Harry to be caught with Pettigrew, pin Harry’s kidnap on the wizard. Let the system sort itself out so Sirius got a trial (he would be found innocent) and then Harry could live with him. Harry hated this plan, he would have to spent time acting a child, likely months as the system worked slowly. Tom argued it would give them invaluable insight to the light, and they had no idea where the wraith Voldemort was maybe Dumbledore and his lot did, of course Dumbledore would interfere with Harry’s placement. They knew where the cup was and couldn’t get it without Bella. The diadem was at Hogwarts, if Harry was very lucky and managed to get placed at Hogwarts until Sirius’ trial, he may have chance to grab it. The other horcrux was in Harry’s scar. They knew where all the known soul pieces were, except the wraith, Tom was largely stable as he was, he didn’t desperately need the rest of his soul at this moment. It wasn’t urgent piecing him back together, information on the wraith Voldemort was most important, he would have the most up to date memories. And the pair needed to know what happened between Ophiuchus’ death and Harry’s birth more than Tom needed a couple more years. He had been in Harry’s mind enough over the past few days to catch up as much as possible before he and his most faithful were separated for potentially months. But the memories only went as far as shortly before Ophiuchus’ death.

XXXXXXXX

The dark lord Voldemort had first been conceived of when Tom and Ophiuchus were in third year, there had been no real plan back then, mostly they were two thirteen year olds day dreaming about their ideal world. They aren’t the first pair of friends to do this, but they are among the small number that actually followed through. The name Voldemort had only come into common use in their fifth year and only then among their closest friends and allies like Corvus and Abraxas. 

Tom first thought of the dark mark in their sixth year. The first person to take it had been Ophiuchus, they had been 18 then, and just left school. He had seen it as a symbol of his commitment to the cause, and his mark had always been a little different, the serpent coming out of the skull had been emerald green rather than the plain black line drawing they had settled on by the time Abraxas and Corvus alongside a few select others had received it shortly after wards. Part of the decision had been because it was a lot of needless effort and wasted magical power for the serpent to be coloured, partly because Ophiuchus was slightly different to the other death eaters, and that slight difference made it clear. Harry missed the mark it had been a comforting presence, a link to Tom, for most of his life. He had the horcrux which was small enough to be virtually useless, he had been gradually feeding it magic but so far he had no real reaction from it. He hoped it would eventually respond to the magic, then he might be able to develop a telepathic link to Tom.

Understandably if Harry Potter was to be a bastion of the light he could not be seen with the dark mark. It was more important for Harry Potter to be unmarked than it was for Oberon Black to be marked. Still the oldest version of Tom they had was the ring so Harry wasn’t sure it would work since the ring’s creation predated the implementation of the dark mark. The locket didn’t, but that was currently sulking around Harry’s neck fizzing and turning almost painfully warm against his skin periodically as it absorbed some of the reincarnated necromancer’s life force. 

Given these facts Harry wasn’t sure how Tom proposed to use the mark to summon Pettigrew given his current form had yet to cast the relevant spells.

Tom simply argued there was a version of him floating around somewhere as a wraith that had, and as he had the greater part of the soul he should be able to get it to work, especially since he understood the theory, and Harry, who did have his memories of the mark being cast which Tom had seen had informed him it had worked how they planned. He knew the name of who he needed and along with the spell that was enough. 

It was possible the wraith form of Tom would notice someone manipulating the strings that bound all his puppets but as Tom pointed out, the wraith was weak and wandless. Harry had his wand, he could probably beat him alone, and even wandless Tom had a pretty decent amount of power behind him. 

If the wraith did somehow track them down it was only to their advantage and they could rethink their plans to separate temporarily.

The mark would compel Pettigrew to return, increasing the pain from a mild burn to agony until the relevant death eater appeared. Harry knew from experience and testing that it was comparable to the cruciatus curse. Ophiuchus Black was no masochist (well not completely) but he had been a convenient test subject. 

So if Pettigrew had been a marked death eater, rather than just an informant, he would be with them shortly. They had not told Sirius they were going to do this, in fact he was still sleeping in his room still being exhausted by his time in Azkaban. Harry also didn’t trust him,it was his impulsive personality and how damaged he was that gave him pause. Harry had no reason to believe Sirius had lied, especially under veritaserum you needed to be a master of the mind arts of Tom’s calibre for it to be an issue. But it was better he stay out the way.

It was for the purpose of summoning Peter Tom and Harry were alone in a field about a hundred miles from their safehouse. 

Tom, smug bastard he always was, had been right. There had been a brief moment of panic where he thought he might have sent out the summons to all the current marked death eaters but he had cancelled the quickly, hopefully giving them no more than a quick fright. Pettigrew appeared in a heap, clutching his arm and crying in agony within five minutes of Tom calling him.

“Crucio” Harry said as soon as he saw him. He hadn’t bothered with aging potion for this so the four year old child casting the curse was probably a lot more unnerving than his usual public form. Tom raised an eyebrow but made no move to stop his long time lover. 

Harry wasn’t even sure what he was angry about, the betrayal of the Potter’s who had been good and kind and deserved better, the betrayal of his nephew who had been sentenced to Azkaban and was now so broken Harry could lie straight to his face and he would lap it up out of desperation without doing even a rudimentary amount of digging or thinking it through, or the destruction of Tom’s body due to his actions. 

“Harry he needs to be sane enough to answer questions” Tom reminded him, right, the curse. Harry let Wormtail go. 

“Obliviate” Tom said waving his new dragon heartstring wand.

“What did you do that for?” Harry asked “you said he needs to answer questions.”

“We want to send him to the aurors under veritaserum, what do you think will happen if he says four year old Harry Potter crucio’d him, they won’t believe it of course but that will throw his whole testimony into question. And he didn’t truly kidnap you, I’ve removed the past few months from his mind, much cleaner. Now be quiet I need to concentrate” and Tom pushed into Peter’s mind false memories of seizing Harry Potter and running around the country with a frightened child searching obsessively for his master. 

Harry would want to make him into a thrall as he had his aunt but the ministry would have people who would recognize the dark magic of a necromancer and after the stuff he had pulled in his first life, the imperius looked like the tickling charm compared to necromantic thralls, after all a person under the imperius could be returned to normal, a necromantic thrall would just die when released. Any sign of it would cause panic and probably cast suspicion on Oberon Black when he was properly revealed. 

The newly obliviated Pettigrew was twitching, startled and clearly terrified though not recognizing either of them. Not surprising given he last saw Harry as a baby and last saw the shell of what Tom had become, not the handsome, younger Tom was not shocking.

“Stupefy. Incarcerous” Tom said binding Pettigrew, he then turned to Harry towering over the necromancer in a child’s body.

Harry took out his own wand and Tom was soon replaced by Makarios Caiaphus, now he had a wand, Tom could do the transfiguration himself but it was easier for Harry, who could see his lover’s face to do it. 

Then Tom looked at Harry and winced regretfully. The next step of their plan was going to seperate them for a while, hopefully a short while, and Harry wouldn’t even have the locket, having reluctantly removed it and put it in the desk in his study. Where he was probably going to end up he had no wish to attract attention to it, though he felt naked without it. He had also left the Gaunt ring behind for the same reason, he would have to turn his wand over to Tom before he left as well. So he’d have to rely on wandless magic and his own necromantic gifts where they wouldn’t attract too much attention.

Tom cast a few cutting charms at Harry, ripping the clothes he wore (the same muggle clothes he had been wearing when he escaped Petunia, he had grown since then but for once he was glad the clothes had been so big, they were still much too big for him), and cutting into his skin. Used to using his own blood in potions and used to the cruciatus curse, Harry didn’t cry out painful as it was, when Tom was finished Harry was a disheveled and bleeding mess but not dangerously injured. Tom then cast a conjunctivitis curse, which he immediately countered but it left Harry with red watering eyes which looked like he’d been crying. 

Makarios Caiaphus then took Harry’s wand, pocketed it and cast the auror summoning charm. A charm any witch or wizard should be able to cast in case they ran into trouble and Harry hid in Makarios Caiaphus’ robes as if afraid of Pettigrew, whose dark mark was on full display. 

A tall black auror arrived. He drew his wand immediately then he said “Peter Pettigrew?” so he recognized the man, unexpected but helpful.

The auror turned to Makarios “what is going on here?”

“I got lost and I saw this man dragging a screaming child” he puts his hand on Harry’s shoulder for emphasis “so I intervened. He attacked and when his robes ripped… I am a stranger in this country but that is the sign of the followers of Britain’s former dark lord yes? The boy hasn’t stopped shaking since I got nothing out of it, but the fact he ran to me for protection straight away surely shows the man didn’t have him willingly. I don’t think he understands I thought him a muggle child but then he did accidental magic so I’m thinking muggle born. He’s clearly under 11 so he probably doesn’t know about our world.”

The auror looked at Harry who had hidden his face.

“I think we should go back to the office and talk about this” the auror said “I’m auror Shacklebolt.”

“Makarios Caiaphus” Tom lied with a nod. 

“Can you take the boy?” auror Shacklebolt asked “he seems attached to you.”

Tom knelt down so he was at Harry’s height, “what’s your name?”

“Harry” Harry said softly. 

“Do you know about wizards Harry?”

“Magic isn’t real, my uncle says its for freaks” Harry repeats. 

“Wait Harry?” Shacklebolt interrupts and he too approaches but faster, Harry feigns fear and looks to Makarios for protection. 

Shacklebolt seems to realize he is scaring the boy and asks Makarios “does he have a scar on his forehead?”

“Yes, like a lightening bolt… wait. I think I heard of this. I was in Athens at the time but Harry. Harry Potter. Yes?”

“Yeah” Harry said softly, “do I know you sir?”

Makarios looks at the auror as if sharing his relief though he speaks to Harry “I think a lot of people are going to be very relieved you are safe child.”

“Show me your arms” Shacklebolt demands suddenly paranoid, “I am not letting you take him unless you prove you are no death eater” of course Tom has no dark mark, he invented it but he does as requested. 

“Where are we apparating to?” he asks.

Shacklebolt gives him an address outside the ministry, he takes Pettigrew and Makarios takes Harry, who hates side along apparation but tolerates it. The fact he never gracefully mastered it and in fact falls over as soon as they arrive merely adds credence to his supposed ignorance of the magical world. 

XXXXXXXXx

Auror Shacklebolt disappears straight into the head auror's office with Makarios. Scrimgeour according to the sign on the door. Harry remembers him from his first life but only vaguely.

Shacklebolt leaves Harry with a female member of the department with a simple explanation of “Harry Potter, talk to him and see what happened to him these past few months. I need to speak to Scrimgeour urgently”.

So Harry is ushered into an interview room by a plump middle aged South Asian witch who looks completely unintimidating but can’t be if she passed training, appearances can be deceiving after all look at him. 

She gives him juice and cakes and speaks gently. He realizes what is going on, sometimes children are the only witnesses or victims of horrific crimes but you cannot question them like adults, this woman is trying to coax the information out of him.

“Your name is Harry?” she asks though he knows she knows the answer, “my name is Vedhika” she continues in the same friendly voice. That does get his attention.

Vedhika Sharma. One of Ophiuchus’ old protege’s. The only mudblood death eater. As Ophiuchus he was pleased his old protege had escaped Azkaban. As Harry Potter, he wasn’t sure how Vedhika would react to him. 

“Are people listening to us?” Harry asked as an innocent child “I don’t like being spied on”

“No” Vedhika informs him “no one can hear us. Do you want to tell me what happened?” 

“You were always clever Vedhika, look at my eyes and have a think.” 

He had kept his head down but now he raised his head up high and showed her his necromancer’s eyes. 

“I’m glad you escaped Azkaban” he said while Vedhika was still stunned into silence. 

“Master” she whispers with shocked reverence. 

“Reincarnation ritual gone wrong. I will be able to contact you, or at least have Makarios do it. The man with auror Shacklebolt. He’s one of us too” he doesn’t want to explain just who Makarios is yet “I will explain but for now I will tell you the story I want you to repeat, once you have done that continue as you have been doing.” 

“I understand.”

“I was living with my aunt and uncle. I didn’t know anything about magic then one day my aunt was taking me to the dentist and on our way back across the car park the rat man appeared he waved his… wand? I think its called at her and she went blank she drove off without me. I was screaming her name but she didn’t listen. Then he took me, I don’t know where, a variety of different abandoned houses. He kept whispering about how his master would reward him. How he had framed someone called Serious Black? And laughing about it” he got rid of the innocent tone “Sirius Black IS genuinely innocent, I would be very grateful if you could plant the idea of a retrial in the head of the relevant people, but do not give yourself away to do so. For reasons I don’t want to explain yet it would be helpful is Sirius is acquitted which he will be if given a fair trial.”

Vedhika nods.

“And I would also be grateful if you could try and plant the idea I be sent to Hogwarts for a while, safest place in Britain of course, until suitable temporary guardians can be agreed upon.”

“I think Kingsley, the auror who brought you in was one of Dumbledore’s he might be susceptible to the idea” she says “Scimgeour is no Dumbledore fan which is annoying in this incidence. But it might be the better option than letting it be known you are found and risking sending you to the wrong people. You never know who was a death eater” her eyes twinkle a bit as she finished her sentence. 

Vedhika had been a favourite of his, more level headed than his niece, able to think for herself. He was impressed she had managed to talk her way into auror training despite the dark mark on her arm. He would ask her later, maybe they just never suspected a muggle born. 

Vedhika takes him into the auror’s break room as he is yawning, he has been up all night and his body is only four after all. And gives him a blanket so he can sleep on the sofa, as some aurors do for a brief nap when pulling all nighters. 

Makarios eventually leaves Scrimgeour’s office the door to the break room is wide open and their eyes briefly meet as Makarios walks through the open office to leave as if they are strangers he smiles briefly at Harry and leaves. 

With Vedhika in the auror office, and his nephew in law twice over having Fudge’s ear. He will probably get what he wants. Vedhika was an unexpected bit of good luck but he had written to Lucius already telling him if Harry Potter showed up try and get custody of him. The goal was to have him sent to Hogwarts and given the suspicion Lucius still attracted and attempt by him would probably force Dumbledore’s allies and those like Scrimgeour who didn’t like Dumbledore but preferred him to the Dark lord to send Harry to Hogwarts. And if it failed and he was given over to Lucius, it would be annoying and he’d have to think of another way to get into Hogwarts, or wait until he was 11, but going to Lucius wouldn’t be awful given his true sympathies. Lucius was so scared of him he’d do whatever Harry said anyway.

For once he would have to do nothing and let the seeds already sown take root. He lay down on the sofa in the auror’s break room and pretended to sleep while multiple aurors argued in whispers around him, which they seemed to believe he couldn’t hear, auror training seemed to have a blind spot when it came to dealing with children, about the best course of action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be switching between Harry and Tom POV from this point onwards, I don't plan to do this for the whole fic but probably for the next 4-6 chapters as they have been seperated and both Tom and Harry are off doing different things. Chapter 10 will be what Tom does after he leaves the ministry and Chapter 11 will be what happens to Harry now the ministry has found him. 
> 
> I made up Vedhika though I often don't do OC's I wanted to explore why a muggleborn would be a death eater (as far as we know there were no muggleborn death eaters but there were multiple half bloods including Voldemort himself) and she gives me the opportunity to do so later.


	10. Director Crouch- Tom's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom has to explain to Sirius what happened to Harry, and returns to the ministry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again thank you to everyone sticking with this story, despite my patchy update schedule and the fact I'm writing a lot of this with no outline so sometimes what happens is a surprise to me. 
> 
> Special thanks to everyone who commented or left kudos.

It was nearly 9pm (thank Merlin Scrimgeour was a workaholic and expected his aurors to work just as hard as he did, Tom had expected only a few aurors to be present in their office at that time of day but this had worked out better), when Tom returned to the cottage. 

He was satisfied he had played Makarios Caiaphus as he wanted him to be seen, foreign and therefore with no stake in anything but fundamentally well meaning and competent. A blank slate with potential, and the hope of planting the seed that in time the light would approach him. 

He did regret leaving Harry behind though he knew intellectually his oldest and only friend and lover could cope, and part of him was amused to imagine Harry becoming frustrated by having to fake the intellect of a four year old. While he could act, he wasn’t as naturally talented that way as Tom was he found it a strain. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too difficult for him, he looked so small and innocent, no one would suspect. And Tom thought he saw Vedhika Sharma as he left. She had been marked but brought in by Ophiuchus, one of his multiple strays. For a scion of the most noble and ancient house of Black he had an odd penchant for strays. Though when challenged Ophiuchus would always laugh and point out Tom had been one of his strays and look how well that worked out. He had no memory of most of his life with Ophiuchus, though he knew most of it from reading the necromancer’s mind. Even that only brought him up to the sixties (plus a few years of the early 80s). He was not ready to make himself known as Lord Voldemort yet, especially with memories missing, clearly he had gone very wrong and he needed to rectify that before anything else could be done. Which meant finding the wraith. 

He is making himself some coffee in the kitchen when Black appears from wherever he’s been all day, most likely in his room resting. 

“Where’s Harry?” the escaped convict asked, voice hoarse from lack of use in Azkaban. 

“Not here” Tom says shortly not feeling like explaining.

“By himself?” the convict demands probably concerned.

“He’s not really 4" Tom reminds him, "You say you understand that but do you really? He’s older than me, not much older granted, but still…”

“But he’s so small" Black interrupts. 

“He’s hardly helpless… you’ve not seen him duel. He’s not quite as strong as he used to be, his magical core isn’t as reactive due to his physical age and he tires more easily but he was so good in our previous life. That he’s still stronger than the vast majority of wizards.” 

“When is he getting back?”

“I don’t know, weeks if we’re lucky, more likely months.”

“Why?"

Tom really wishes he could crucio Black and shut him up but that would cause too many problems.

“Because we caught Pettigrew a few hours ago and framed him for Harry’s disappearance. He’s with the aurors now. Unfortunately Harry has to stay for a little bit until they eventually come to the conclusion you need a trial and Harry should come with you. So he has to play the child a bit longer. We’re hoping the ministry will send him somewhere like Hogwarts but its out of our hands now.”

“You caught Peter and didn’t invite me? Why not? I would have relished the chance to ring his treacherous neck" Black shouted near hysterically.

“That is exactly why we needed him alive. To prove your innocence. And to frame for kidnapping Harry…I obliviated him of the last ten years so he won’t know he didn’t kidnap Harry.”

“You framed him?”

“His actual crimes are enough to get the kiss. Do you really think kidnapping Harry is going to increase his sentence much given that? Besides, I told you when we first met, it wasn’t the first time either of us has ever cast the killing curse. We’re not evil, we don’t go around killing and torturing for fun. But we don’t flinch from what needs to be done.” Sometimes what needed to be done was crucioing death eaters who showed signs of rebellion or incompetence but Black didn’t need to know that. 

“You were a Slytherin weren’t you?” Sirius says a hint of accusation in his voice.

“So was Harry” he points out “Slytherins aren’t evil. Look at Pettigrew. He was a Gryffindor. He was also a pathetic coward. The house a hat puts you in at 11 is a ridiculous way to measure competence.”

“Did you go to Hogwarts this time around?”

“No, Durmstrang. I was born in Greece.” He had decided his alter ego should be foreign and he was limited to languages he spoke. The Caiaphus family were a powerful family of Greco-Roman origin, very old. The last member of the family died in the 1960’s. He would serve for Makarios’ father. 

“Originally or in your current life?”

“Current life. In my previous life I was born in London.” That at least is true.

“This is way too confusing for me.”

“Me too, you were wronged and we’re going to put that right but this whole boy who lived thing. It has caused unnecessary complications in our lives.”

“You were Slytherins would you have backed Voldemort.” That is a gross oversimplification but Tom can't be bothered to correct that part, however he can't let the misunderstandings about Voldemort go. 

“Not as he was in the 80s” Tom can say for it honestly seems like he lost the plot. The wizarding world seem to think Voldemort was a vicious madman, a terrorist who wanted to kill all muggles. That was never true. Well he would have liked to kill all muggles but he was practical. It wasn’t doable, all his genocidal plans had involved infertility curses over a wide area and letting the muggles die off naturally and he had never got far enough in his plans to work out the logistics of such a thing. He had abandoned that for research into a way to make all children born to muggles muggle born. So wizards replaced muggles gradually, with no need to hide, he would want less restrictions on magic (of course they would steal the good ideas the muggles had too) and practicing it. He wanted wizarding supremacy, he had no moral objection to massacres but his most recent plan was more practical. To go so so wrong, he must have really lost it. He would kill and torture when needed (and to be honest he enjoyed it) but he understood you could not rule on fear alone. 

“He didn’t always behave as you remember, had I known him in the 40s, I probably would have joined him” Tom says “but not as it turned out. I mean, why try to kill a baby?” that bit really made no sense even to Tom and Harry.

Sirius didn’t like him, Tom knew that much but he also knew Sirius had no where else to go and was clinging to the connection to James through Harry. He wasn’t happy but he wouldn’t run. By saying such things Tom hoped to get Sirius more used to the idea of the dark and get rid of misconceptions, for Harry’s sake. Harry said he was happy killing Sirius if needed and while Tom knew he would do what needed to be done he also knew it was an exaggeration to say Harry would do so happily, it would upset him to kill his nephew. Leaving Sirius to think, or rather making his escape before he had to answer more questions Tom took his coffee upstairs with him into the study.

Harry had written letters to Cygnus and Walburga and now they had enacted their plan, Tom gave them to Hedwig to deliver. Strict instructions to not interfere. If they are to present Sirius’ innocence, the fact he was disowned must not change, he must be seen as the (pardon the pun) Black sheep of the family. So they must ignore him. They’d done a fine job so far. Tom knew Harry wasn’t too pleased about that, despite Sirius’ choices he still saw him as family but they had always worked with what they had. 

Ensuring the Blacks were informed of the situation regarding their son and nephew, he went to bed, it was weird not having Harry here. They had taken to sleeping in the same bed. They had shared a bed on and off since they were about 16, they hadn’t dared do it in the dormitory, while several of their closest probably suspected the nature of their relationship it was something people didn’t talk about. But they’d spent summers before their sixth and seventh years in the small London flat Ophiuchus had bought claiming he’d like more independence. Tom had lived there full time at the necromancer’s invitation and they had slept in the same bed then. And it seemed, from Harry’s memories that they had regularly continued doing so, even when Ophiuchus officially lived with Pandora, he had spent more time at the Riddle house with Tom.

Tom had never really considered himself gay, the only person he was every interested in was Ophiuchus, and had he been female, nothing would have changed… well he’d probably have fought more for a female lover, because marriage would have been an option. He had never liked that Ophiuchus was betrothed to Pandora but he’d tolerated it. If Ophiuchus had been female and betrothed to say, Abraxas. He would have fought more. Given Tom’s power they may have been able to get a match that would have got a female Ophiuchus struck off the family tapestry through. But that was all hypothetical. 

They had easily fallen back into their routine when reunited. It was weird Harry was so small. While gender may not matter to Tom he found no attraction in a child. They had to limit aging potion to small bouts to avoid ruining Harry’s liver, so when they slept together (literally not figuratively) he didn’t bother. 

He would miss Harry’s company, after so long in the diary (or ring) he missed human contact, and Harry was the only one he trusted enough to let this weakness show. He would survive without him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss him terribly. 

XXXXX

Tom woke up early the next morning. Out of habit he rose quietly to avoid waking Harry, before he remembered Harry was Merlin knew where.

He had the house elf cook for him, while he could cook he didn’t feel like doing it just for himself (well and Sirius Black but he didn’t care much for his lover’s nephew slash godfather). 

He drank his morning tea, earl grey black, while reading the paper. No comments on Pettigrew and Black yet. Which meant the ministry was currently keeping quiet. 

Hedwig returned with one letter, nothing from Harry’s siblings, which was expected really since Harr had told Cygnus what he was doing and simply told Walburga, who didn’t know Ophiuchus was Harry Potter that he would be uncontactable for a while. 

Tom expected silence from the Blacks but what he didn’t expect was a ministry letter to fly in through the window and begin to speak, inviting him to the ministry. Sent by the head of the DMLE, Bartemius Crouch, though given the voice of the letter was female it was probably sent by someone in his office rather than the director himself. 

Tom remembered Crouch from Hogwarts. Three years younger than Ophiuchus and Tom but a fellow Slytherin. Never one of his though that could have changed there was nothing about Crouch in the memories he took from Harry.

Sirius walks into the kitchen at this point and the elf begins serving him breakfast immediately.

“Sirius, do you know anything about Bartemius Crouch?” he asked figuring it couldn’t hurt to ask and while he had been in prison for three years Sirius would have more recent information than Harry or Tom.

“Crouch” he spat “he’s the one that sent me to Azkaban without trial. Ambitious that one, traditional but never a death eater. Worked his whole life to become minister though that probably won’t happen now. Worse than what he did to me, he sent his own son to Azkaban, the whole trial from what I hear was a farce, an excuse to leave no one in doubt how much the father hated his son.”

“What did the son do?”

“He was apparently involved in torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom to insanity, along with my cousin Bella and her disgusting husband and brother in law.”

“And did he?”

“I don’t know. He was young, may have been in the wrong place wrong time. I remember him the first night, screaming for his mother, he died in less than a year.”

Tom filed away that information but really the guilt or innocence of Crouch’s son didn’t matter if he was dead he could be of no use.

“Head of DMLE, he won’t want you found innocent” Tom said “so it depends on his honesty.”

“He likes to believe he follows the law but he’s a hypocrite.”

Sirius is understandably biased. But any information is useful to Tom.

XXXXXXX

Tom arrives at the ministry promptly at 2.45 pm for his 3 o’clock meeting with the head of the DMLE. He hasn’t spent much time here before. Having never actually been caught for the multitude of crimes he committed and not having worked there or needed a permit he had had little need to be there. He knew he had been a few times after he split his soul. He’d seen snatches of himself watching a few trials with Ophiuchus. Several of Ophiuchus’ relatives, Arcturus and his father Pollux both had seats on the wizengamot. 

Still he didn’t have to fake pausing to read the signs as he looked for Crouch’s office. In doing so he nearly crashed in Vedhika Sharma who seemed to have been laying in wait to ambush him.

“Mr Caiaphus” she smiles “you look lost, would you like some assistance?”  
“Yes please Miss…”  
“Sharma, Auror Vedhika Sharma, pleased to meet you” she held out his hand to shake as she did so she pressed a small scrap of parchment into his hand.   
“I owe him everything” she says quietly “he asked me to try and tell you where he was sent”  
Tom pockets the parchment without looking at it.   
“He told you about me?” he asked.  
“He said you serve him too. Nothing more. Just that he would explain later and I should go with it.”  
So she thinks he is merely another death eater, or possibly just another of Ophiuchus’ strays. That works for now.

“Thank you auror Sharma” he says more loudly “and yes, I have been invited to speak to Director Crouch, but I am a bit lost, perhaps you would be so kind as to show me the way?”  
“Of course” she nods.  
“So you are quite the hero” she tells Tom amused.  
“Me? I’m not sure about that. I did what anyone would do when faced with a frightened child” he says so if anyone is listening they will hear nothing incriminating. Then quieter, “tell me about Crouch.” Vedhika may have more insight than Sirius whose information is out of date by a few years.

“Mr Crouch…” she seems to think of how to speak tactfully “he was the one who presided over Black’s case. He will not like this. It does not look good for him and he has had so many troubles recently. He lost his wife and son. His son was accused of being a death eater.”

“Was he?” he asked wondering if she will give the death eater answer or the auror answer.

“I don’t know” Vedhika tells him and he believes her “he may have been, or he may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Mr Crouch will not want another trial. He is a good man really but the strain, I fear he cannot take anymore and a trial, either he missed something or worse, condemned an innocent man. It will end his career. He might try to sweep it under the rug. His sons death… there was always doubt over the boy’s guilt and there was the feeling that even if he was guilty Crouch senior bore some blame for being a neglectful father. He was close to being the next minister just three years ago, then his son was caught and there is no chance now, he may even be fired, though a demotion to a less important role is more likely. A trial in which Black is found innocent will destroy his remaining credibility.”

“You can tell your colleagues I will be happy to attend any trial as a witness, either Pettigrew or Black’s trials. I assume he will have another one since he as a bare minimum didn’t kill Pettigrew. Though it is unclear whether they were in cahoots or whether Black was framed.”

Vedhika thinks on it, he doesn’t know what Harry told her, so he’s feeding her lines of enquiry, hinting at what they want, another trial and hoping she is smart enough to pick up on it.

“He said he wants a trial” Vedhika said, not naming Harry.

“Surely the British ministry believes in justice. A trial will help discover the facts. Whatever they may be” is all he says to give his opinion.

“I understand” Vedhika nods then she smiles brightly as a few more officials pass them “and on the right is the waiting room. This is where I leave you Mr Caiaphus, someone will call you in to see Director Crouch when he is ready.”

XXXXXXXXX

A harried looking, and young, just out of Hogwarts secretary calls him in after a few moments, it seems the director is not very busy today since Tom is the only one waiting, furthermore for his secretary to be so young when secretary to the head of the DMLE is such a sought after job. It implies Crouch is seen as career poison, everyone is waiting for him to fall. 

Director Crouch’s office is still grand though, multiple newspaper clippings praising him are framed on the wall. But nothing dated the last few years Tom notes. His desk is also not crowded. Head of the DMLE is the second best job in the ministry, second only to the minister himself. Crouch should be an incredibly busy man. Yet another sign he is a fading star. 

“Mr Caiaphus” Mr Crouch acknowledges, he looks ill, his eyes are sunken in and his skin pale. 

“I’ll see Mr Caiaphus alone” he tells the secretary who flees. He cannot be an easy boss. 

Director Crouch’s eyes are glazed over. He shows exhaustion but no sign of emotion. He must be very ill, the last few years have taken their toll on him careerwise, maybe the impacted his health as well it isn’t unexpected. 

“What happened last night?” is all Crouch asks in a monotone voice. 

Well that isn’t a very good legal question. Tom would expect to be asked for more details, maybe be asked who he is first. Still he tells his version of events, well the one he and Harry agreed to, the same as he told Scrimgeour. 

“You may go” is all Crouch says when Tom has finished. And this is not right. Something is off here. Really off, Crouch is not alert, he is not asking the piercing questions he would expect of a man desperately trying to save his career. He is not even regretful and resigned to loosing his position. There is nothing, no reaction.

At that thought Tom’s hand stops on the door knob and he turns around to face Crouch again.

“Mr Crouch?” he asks and the man turns in his direction but slowly, sluggishly as if moving through treacle. This is exactly why Tom wants to keep his return secret for now, until he has the knowledge and power of his more recent self, because he has raw power but the experience of a 17 year old. He should have picked up on this at first sight but he had almost missed it. Most would miss it but Tom was already trained in the mind arts, he even noticed the wizard was behaving strangely, he should have realized earlier. 

Bartemius Crouch was under the imperius curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s never said when Crouch sr leaves DMLE, it is after the death of his son, shortly after imprisonment (let’s say if he was imprisoned 1981 he was probably rescued 1982, 1983) We are now in 1984. I imagine Barty sr will loose his job shortly, well he would if I was following canon.
> 
> Next time: we find out what the ministry did with Harry. I think you can all guess who Tom gets to meet in the chapter after that (a favourite of mine).


	11. Diadems and Dumbledore- Harry POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is sent to Hogwarts, and talks with Dumbledore. Of course being Harry he attracts danger almost immediately.

Harry woke up with a crick in his neck from sleeping on the sofa all night, Vedhika came in with some bacon and eggs and pumpkin juice for breakfast. 

“I’m supposed to be off shift” she tells the still half asleep necromancer “but I offered to work overtime on the basis you seem to feel safe with me.”

“Any news? What time is it?” he asks after checking they are alone. It seems most aurors have no idea how to deal with such a young child and are happy to let Vedhika take the lead.

“It’s 10 o’clock no one wanted to wake you, we figured you were exhausted from your ordeal. Lucius Malfoy but in a request for custody of you this morning. I spoke against it. Current thinking is to send you to Hogwarts.”

“Good” Harry said “if you come across Makarios Caiaphus can you let him know where I am? I imagine at some point he will be called back to the ministry”

“He has a meeting with Director Crouch this afternoon” Vedhika says “Crouch will want his views, I’ll try and catch him.”

“If he gives you an order, listen to him. Treat his words as mine” Harry tells Vedhika. 

“There is something else” Vedhika says, “your eyes. They’ve noticed. It wasn’t obvious at first given you kept looking at the floor, a shy child but Kingsley noticed… there’s all sorts of gossip flying around. They haven’t connected you to Ophiuchus Black well not in reality but there is Black blood in you… I heard your son has been seen with Cygnus Black as well.”

Ah Oberon Black, Cygnus had probably had to explain who the young man he’d been seen with was.

“Oberon isn’t my son. He’s an alter ego of mine” Harry says “I can’t hide the eyes and as the most famous necromancer of recent history any necromancer will be connected to Ophiuchus Black so I made the connection first by playing my illegitimate son, when I’m not forced to be Harry. I need an adult alter ego but I have to limit my personas because of my eyes.”

“You can’t glamour necromancer’s eyes” Vedhika said “have you considered glasses?”

“I briefly used sunglasses and a cane and faked a sight issue once” he tells Vedhika “but Harry Potter is famous, so incredibly famous I won’t be able to hide it for ever, eventually I will slip up. And then, better to get any backlash out of the way where it can be argued I’m an innocent four year old who did nothing wrong. So by the time I actually want to use Harry’s fame and treat him as a political player, well everyone will be used to the eyes.”

“Dumbledore’s been saying you’re a child and it’s unfair to judge you. He’s pushing hard for you to come to Hogwarts. I think he reasons since he hasn’t been able to shield you from our world for as long as he hoped he might as well influence you.”

“He’s not evil” Harry tells Vedhika, “I know why you aren’t fond of him. I don’t like him either we disagree on almost every point of politics, but he isn’t deliberately cruel. Harry is difficult to deal with, orphan, godfather in Azkaban. What can he do with what he believes is an innocent child? My closest magical relatives, the Blacks were all dark and would likely hand me over to Voldemort if asked. Any guardian is a risk, they could be dark themselves or become vulnerable to the dark. He also probably wants to avoid me becoming a spoilt brat who feels he doesn’t have to work for anything. The Dursleys were far from ideal but I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have made the same decision he did in his shoes.”

“I thought you wanted him dead.”

“I do” Harry said, “he is the most powerful opponent of my beliefs. To kill him would be a massive blow for his side. But I don’t hate him. I respect him, you can respect someone and not agree with them. It won’t stop me killing him if given the chance though.”

XXXXXX

Harry was indeed to be sent to Hogwarts, he was sitting in the same waiting room, getting more and more bored. This was the problem with playing the child, no one felt the need to keep him informed (save Vedhika who had gone to talk to some of her colleagues) when he saw Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorway.

“Hello Harry” the old man says in a genial, grandfatherly tone that if Harry truly were a traumatized child with no knowledge of the magical world, would comfort him.

He would have to be nice to the headmaster. He would have to make Dumbledore believe he loved him like a grandfather, or would grow to given time. 

“Who are you?” he asks.

“My name is Albus Percival Wulfic Brian Dumbledore, and I’m the headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.”

“A school of magic?” Harry asks in wonder, “can I learn magic?” he asks excited.

“I’m sure you will, however I regret to inform you we do not accept students under the age of 11. Despite this it has been decided you will stay at Hogwarts until a more permanent home can be found for you. Have you been told about magical world?”

“Vedhika told me all about magic” Harry says, of course she had done no such thing but it explained their long conversations and such a young child might feel he now knew everything “and she told me my parents didn’t die in a car crash.”

Dumbledore frowned as if Harry had said something that didn’t quite fit with his world view.

“Who told you there was a car crash Harry?”

“Aunt Petunia. She didn’t like me much said I would grow up to be a drunk like my Dad… what’s a drunk?”

Dumbledore ignores his question and simply tells him “Harry your parents were good and brave people. Who stood up to evil.”

“But why sir? Why couldn’t he kill me?” Harry knows but wants to know if Dumbledore does. Or at least has a theory.

“I believe it was your mother, she sacrificed herself to save you. There is no greater magic than love.”

Bollocks. That’s his best theory? Lily Potter wasn’t the only mother in the history of the world, muggle or magical to try to sacrifice herself for her child, usually the child just got to watch their mother die before they too died. 

Dumbledore seems to be ignoring his eyes, but he had seen Harry as an infant he knew about the eyes. The aurors hadn’t he had heard whispers while he was feigning sleep. Suits Harry he will pretend he doesn’t know what his eyes mean. Love overcoming a dark nature, Dumbledore will eat that up. It’s rubbish of course. Harry has a dark nature AND he can love those aren’t mutually exclusive principles.

“Mr Dumbledore sir?” Harry says unsurely.

“What is it Harry?”

“Why can’t I go back home?” no one has told him Petunia has died and he wants people to think he cared about the muggles, “Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon will be worried.”

In truth he just wants to know what happened to Vernon and Dudley, he hates the idea of muggles walking around who share blood with him (he understands Tom’s patricidal tendencies a bit more now, though killing them can wait it is no where near top of his current priority list). 

Dumbledore looks very sad. 

“I’m afraid your aunt died Harry. Your uncle and cousin have been moved for their safety.”

“Was it because of me?” Harry asked.

“It wasn’t your fault” Dumbledore tells him, “perhaps I was mistaken to put you with muggles, they were your closest family it seemed the right thing to do but they would not have had much defence against dark wizards. Until we can find somewhere safe for you we will be taking you to Hogwarts. The wards there are stronger no one will hurt you.”

Given Harry remembers being a teenager and watching another teenager (Tom, obviously) set a giant basilisk on a fellow student he knows that is rubbish but he nods excitedly and takes Dumbledore’s hand.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

They arrive in the headmaster’s office.

Harry had been here before a couple of times with Tom, mostly to persuade Dippet to let Tom go home with Ophiuchus instead of back to the orphanage, the high standing of the Black’s back then and the fact everyone (save Dumbledore) thought Tom was brilliant, plus the approval of their then head of house, Slughorn who had recruited Ophiuchus and Tom into his slug club (though Harry bet he didn’t brag about that now) meant those meetings had usually been a 2 minute conversation in which the headmaster always gave approval. 

The office hadn’t changed much in decor, the portraits of all the previous headmaster’s were there. Plenty of odd instruments and a pensive, which Dippet hadn’t had were displayed prominently. Dippet had had just as many books, but his had all been on magical theory and charms, a former Ravenclaw, Dippet had at heart been an academic who spent a lot of his time pursuing his own academic interests though he had been a strict disciplinarian this had never been a problem for Ophiuchus or Tom who presented a united front of obedient, hard working students. 

By contrast Dumbledore had a more eclectic collection books on all sorts of random magical topics, but his collection was still transfiguration heavy with a selection of history and politics books the Dippet would have had no interest in given his lack of interest in anything outside Hogwarts and his own studies. Dippet would have been easier to play, not a stupid man by any means but not a political player, Harry wondered if he was still alive. But a caw got his attention.

Dumbledore’s phoenix Fawkes was perched near the window. That was… not good. Necromancer’s exuded dark magic and the phoenix was light. Fawkes had never liked him, the phoenix had been perched in the transfiguration classroom, it had attacked an 11 year old Ophiuchus, though Dumbledore had scolded the phoenix and apologized on his familiar’s behalf he himself had clearly never trusted the boy. Harry knew Dumbledore wouldn’t let Fawkes damage him severely but he still didn’t really want to be clawed. He considered his next move when the bird flew at him, scratching at his cheeks with his claws, coming close to his eyes as Harry curled up into a ball. Dumbledore reacted fast and sent Fawkes away with a spell. 

“What was that?” Harry asked shakily he was genuinely a bit shaken, no one liked being attacked and he didn’t remember Fawkes being so hateful.

“That was a phoenix” Dumbledore said checking Harry for injuries, this had been worse than last time, Ophiuchus at 11 years old had simply been pecked a couple of times. This time the bird had tries to claw Harry’s eyes out. He supposed his soul was darker. He had done more now than in his first life as an 11 year old. He was really a fully fledged necromancer in a child’s body. Dumbledore would wonder at this, he too would remember how Fawkes reacted to another necromancer and wonder why he was so much worse this time. 

“Did I scare him? Why did he attack me?”

Necromancer’s eyes, he wonders if Dumbledore will tell him. But strangely Dumbledore’s eyes travel to Harry’s scar… the scar where the horcrux resides. Of course, Dumbledore will suspect its a horcrux. A horcrux could cause Fawkes to go manic as much as Ophiuchus Black’s dark dark soul. Harry waits and wonders if Dumbledore will admit to Harry what he is, necromancer and horcrux both, or if he will tell partial truths. 

“Its your eyes” Dumbledore tells him. So he is keeping the horcruxes secret. 

“I heard the people at the ministry whisper about my eyes. But I don’t understand, what’s wrong with my eyes?”

“It’s the colour.”

“They’re green?” Harry frowned “but there was a girl on my street with green eyes. Not many people have green eyes but I’ve seen others.”

“It’s not that they are green” Dumbledore said, “green eyes are not as common as blue or brown eyes but it is not that they are green. It is that they are that exact shade of green. Eyes that shade of green mean you inherited a powerful talent, the last known person with this talent would have been a cousin of your father’s… he was not a good man. He was the right hand man of Voldemort.”

“Who’s Voldemort?” Harry asks no one uses the name, except Dumbledore (Ophiuchus had used it but he was long dead as far as anyone knew). 

“The dark wizard who killed your parents” Dumbledore says “many wizards fear to say his name and call him “you-know-who” or “he-who-must-not-be-named” however I contend fear of the name increases the fear of the thing itself.”

“So because he could do it and he was bad. The bird doesn’t like me?” Harry asked.

“Yes”

“So what can I do?” Harry asked “is it cool?”

“Harry my boy, you need to understand, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. You’re too young to do anything at the moment, the magical core is not prepared for controlled magic until a child turns 11, which is why we start magical education at that age but not all powers are good.”

“I’m… bad?” he asks hurt.

“No” Dumbledore said firmly but kindly, “it is not our abilities who make us who we are but our choice. You must simply choose not to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Necromancy”

“What’s ne…necomacy?” he asks.

“Magic which involves raising the dead” it is far more complex than that but presumably Dumbledore is dumbing it down for the four year old. 

“So… I could bring back my mum and dad?” he asks because that is the first thing a child would think of “and my aunt Petunia since she only died because of me.”

“No magic can truly restore the dead” Dumbledore tells him, “all you could do is bring back shades, impressions of them, it would be painful for them because they are not meant to be here anymore.”

Which is why Ophiuchus went for other elements, inferi, enthralling people, not raising the dead. He’d done it a few times and they are always complaining, not tied to this world anymore, he usually only does it if he needs information from someone who has died, and sends them back to whatever is beyond the veil as soon as he can.

“It would make them sad?” Harry asked instead, playing good hearted child, he wasn’t convinced he was great at it but hoped trauma plus the horcrux would mean Dumbledore would make allowances. He was just lucky James Potter had been Ophiuchus Black’s cousin, it would have been a lot harder to explain his eyes if not for a connection with the Blacks. 

“Yes” Dumbledore tells him.

“I won’t do it then” he said “but I still wish… I don’t even know what my mum and dad looked like.”

Dumbledore smiles sadly and Harry thinks he has him, good hearted, innocent child who doesn’t understand the implications of his powers. 

“I will see if I can find some photographs for you.”

“Thank you sir” Harry says brightly. 

XXXXXXXX

Dumbledore takes him to the infirmary to deal with the scratches on his face, they hurt though Harry couldn’t see his own face but the headmaster can’t have been too concerned given he stopped to talk to Harry about necromancy. 

“Mr Dumbledore sir?” Harry says when Madame Pomfrey leaves to fetch the salve. 

“Yes Harry.”

“I can talk to snakes too. They find me and whisper things. Is that normal for someone like me?” he really really shouldn’t have said that. It will only make the headmaster suspicious, but the look on Dumbledore’s face was completely worth it.

“No Harry, that too is a very rare gift” is all the headmaster responds with glancing at the scar.

XXXXXXX

A quick salve application later and Harry is fine, so Dumbledore takes him to the staff room, it is a Saturday but even so few students are around, must be a Hogsmeade weekend, all the older students off in the village and the younger students huddled up in their common rooms or the library due to the cold. 

The staff had clearly been waiting for them, an older Minnie McGonagall he recognizes, she’d been the year above him, a Gryffindor. She had been a really beautiful young woman, bright too and a quidditch star. If Ophiuchus had eyes for anyone but Tom he’d have fancied her like 90% of the boys within two years of her. Flitwick he notes, was a boy of Goblin descent which is why Harry remembered him but he had been like a second year when Ophiuchus was a seventh year he hadn’t really noted him. He didn’t remember Pomona Sprout though they may have crossed over in Hogwarts years. Severus Snape was young, and a marked death eater he could sense the mark. Was he a spy or a traitor though? Harry decided not to confront him quite yet. He didn’t know the other teachers, Binns was presumably still around though he hadn’t bothered to attend this meeting. 

The defence teacher this year was a tall, slender young woman, barely past graduation maybe 19 or 20 called Augustine Meracla who sounded Italian, probably not a Hogwarts graduate. Tom could be spiteful when he didn’t get his own way after all, the girl wouldn’t last long. Dumbledore must be running out of candidates if the curse was still ongoing. It had been about 40 years after all. For such a young woman to take this position, knowing the curse. She must have some kind of secret. This makes Harry wary of her. She emits dark magic but not like Snape, she is no death eater. He knows that aura though. Where does he know that aura from? 

It seems the staff are going to be babysitting Harry on a sort of rotating basis, Snape, he notes is not on the register, maybe disinterest given the glares the potions master is giving him, maybe Dumbledore doesn’t trust the marked death eater, most likely a combination of both. It seems McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick and Meracla will be his primary babysitters. Not that that word is used. 

XXXXXXXX

He spends the rest of the day with McGonagall who gives him juice and biscuits and tells him stories about his parents even pulling out a few photographs in which Harry has to feign interest. They look so young in the photographs, but Lily and James had only just been 21 when they died. For him, for a necromancer who would have broken their hearts anyway. Bad luck kids, he thinks with a twinge of regret. 

He gets to sit at the Gryffindor table at dinner. It seems necromancer’s eyes aren’t widely recognized among the student population because he is a popular addition. A few older Slytherins are looking at him strangely but a seventh year would be 17 or 18 and given the dark lord has only been gone for 2 and a half years some of them would have been brought up in the expectation they would serve him. Ophiuchus Black is still a legend, a story they would have been told of.

He ignores them, and focuses on the Gryffindors vying for his attention, both because he is famous and he is cute. Harry’s favourite is Bill Weasley a third year from a large light family, he says he has a brother Harry’s age, and treats him in a way that if Harry really were a traumatized four year old, he would appreciate. He’s bright Bill Weasley. He’ll go far, Ophiuchus always had a talent for spotting the best. Better than his former head of house anyway. Maybe he should start his own slug club. Bill’s younger brother Charlie is a first year. Obsessed with magical creatures, he’s bright too but of less potential future use. 

After dinner Professor Sprout takes him to her quarters. Like most teachers, she has her own apartment set up within the school. As he would have expected from the head of Hufflepuff it is a comfortable set of rooms with tapestries and cushions everywhere. She gives Harry a cup of cocoa and he feigns sleepiness so she leaves him alone. She has set up a side room for Harry it is simple a child size bed covered in quilts and pillows there is a trunk at the end of the bed but it is empty. A too large night shirt is on the bed.

He changes and gets into the bed, he has no wish to sleep yet but he no longer has to be “on” and behave like a child. He’s had enough of new people for the day, and is tired. He misses Tom as well, he shuts his eyes and prods at the scar feeding it magic, he doesn’t have the ring (and the horcrux is gone from it now anyway) or the locket, which he had had to leave behind. He misses Tom and the scar is a poor replacement even if it means he carries a piece of Tom wherever he goes. 

He waits until the light shining in from underneath the door goes out, a sign Sprout has blown out the candles in the living quarters and headed to her own bedchamber. He waits maybe 30 minutes longer, at least he thinks that is how long he waits it is hard to be sure. 

He slips out of bed and puts his shoes back on. Then slowly using his ability to hide, it is almost like an invisibility charm the necromancers talent for hiding in shadows. Invisibility may have nothing to do with necromancy but the tale of the three brother’s indicates such a thing is a gift from death, like the fabled cloak. Harry is sure the hallows are real, and Tom’s ring is one of them. The other two he knows less about though there were rumours Grindelwald had had the elder wand at one point. While his own talents with invisibility were good, he could through most wards, he would give a lot for the cloak.

Harry leaves quietly, if questioned he will say he had a nightmare and got lost. But he knows the castle like the back of his hand, he and Tom had done a lot of late night exploring using Ophiuchus’ gifts to remain undetected. 

It does not take long to get to the room of requirement, a space Tom and Ophiuchus had regularly utilized for practicing certain magics they did not want to be caught playing with. He reaches for the diadem and sends it some of his magic, the diadem was made in 1950. So a 24 year old Tom. An improvement but even smaller than the locket, just 3.125% of a soul and it would be harder for Harry to feed it magic, he briefly amused himself with the idea of him wearing it around constantly, but unlike the locket which could be hidden under robes, this couldn’t be concealed. He’d worry about that later. He was hoping if he put some of the horcruxes with smaller soul pieces together, the locket, the cup and the diadem, he could make better use of his magic. He’d worry about that later. He couldn’t take it with him today, but he could hide it better there were no protections. Tom’s arrogance. By this point he would already have been loosing it and Harry cursed Ophiuchus Black for not realizing sooner. 

He descends down five floors getting out of breath, his legs are too small and he’s already had to climb up to the seventh floor given Sprout’s accommodation is near the Hufflepuff basement. He slips into the second floor girl’s bathroom. 

“Hello” a female voice says, he glanced up. He knows her face, the mudblood Myrtle Warren, Tom’s first kill. Harry had known she came back as a ghost but last he heard she had been haunting her classmate Olive Hornby. 

“Get the fuck out of my way” he snarls concentrating on strengthening his aura. Ghosts, are terrified of necromancer’s who can exorcise them, Myrtle flees immediately. It is less than ideal but he can just claim if Myrtle tells any teachers, that he got lost and doesn’t understand why she was scared of him. He opens the chamber and calls for the slide, it is possible to call for stairs instead but he’s had enough of stairs at the moment. 

He was not a parselmouth in his first life but he was in the chamber enough Tom had ordered the basilisk not to hurt him. He hoped that fact, combined with his skill in parseltongue would enable to him to avoid being hurt by the basilisk. 

“Hello” he hisses in parseltongue “Ariadne?”

“You are not master, you smell like master. Are you his spawn?”

So the basilisk thinks he is Tom’s son. While terrifying Ariadne is a snake and doesn’t understand advanced magic. 

“No, but I have his soul. Do you remember me? Your last master brought me down here before.”

“You are Master’s mate” she says “you didn’t speak parseltongue before, nor were you so small.”

To call him Tom’s mate is close enough and he explains the rest with “it’s complicated. I want to hide something down here, something that belongs to master… is that OK?”

“You will bring me food” Ariadne demands “since you woke me up you will bring me food.”

“Of course” he promises. 

Harry slips into one of the rooms Salazar used to store his books and puts the diadem on a shelf, a low shelf due to the inconvenience of his height. It isn’t the best hiding spot but given the only people who can enter are Tom and him, he figures it is pretty safe. 

XXXXXXX

He is almost back at Sprouts when Professor Meracla stops him. He curses his own stupidity, he had forgotten to cover himself again when he left the chamber, so she could see him.

“Hello Harry, are you lost?”

“Yes Professor” he lies, “I had a nightmare and I tried to find professor Sprout but I entered through the wrong door and…” he fakes crying.

“It’s alright” she tells him “I’ll take you to her.”

His legilimency is no where near as good as Tom’s but he knows straight away. Professor Meracla is lying to him, and as he takes her hand she leads him further and further from Sprout. Maybe he’s about to be kidnapped, he just hopes if he is murdered it won’t take another 11 years for him to reborn, Tom might actually kill him in that case. 

Still he follows her, he’ll have to hope his wandless skills and natural necromancer’s talent is enough if he ends up in trouble. Being Harry Potter was getting to be more trouble than it was worth already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry has awful luck with defence teachers, the only one who didn't try and kill/hurt him is Snape (though Lupin didn't mean it). 
> 
> I'm not planning on adding many OC's to this story, most of my characters are canon even if they are just known to exist (like Luna's mum) or a named character and I've fleshed them out (like Cygnus Black) but we need a Defence teacher and I made her a woman to make up for the discrepancy in canon (only one of Harry's defence teacher's is a woman and its Umbridge). 
> 
> Also Harry doesn't know the Potter family has the cloak yet (as it is still with Dumbledore). 
> 
> It may seem Dumbledore is unusually easy to trick but remember he has no reason to suspect Ophiuchus Black is back, and he attributes all of Harry's odd behaviour to the horcrux and the fact he's a traumatized child. He attributes the necromancer's eyes to the fact it was a trait that popped up occassionally in the Black's and his grandmother was a Black. He sees Harry as a child pulled into this due to no fault of his own, an innocent who deserves a chance despite the darkness of the horcrux and his natural gifts. He will eventually begin to understand what is going on, and he will not go down without a fight. But I hate the fact that so many dark!Harry fics have Dumbledore as evil. My Dumbledore is flawed and far from perfect but he is neither stupid nor evil. He thinks Harry has to die to defeat Tom, but he doesn't like it.
> 
> Also I can't write children, so Harry is doing his best to appear as a child but any mistakes he makes is because he doesn't understand small children (because I can't write small children).
> 
> Next time: We are back with Tom as he decides what to do with Crouch Senior.


End file.
